


Coming Clean

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Anal Fingering, First Kiss, First Time, Jealousy, M/M, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rimming, come on command
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-06
Updated: 2013-04-06
Packaged: 2017-12-07 16:21:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/750513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say it all comes out in the wash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dirty Laundry

**Author's Note:**

> With artwork by livejournal's evian_fork
> 
>  
> 
> [ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/poster.jpg.html)  
> 

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/1.jpg.html)

Few things are more comforting than the solid knowledge that some things never change. John McClane would always drink his coffee black, daytime TV would always suck, and _The Foxes Den_ would always be a dim, fusty shithole.

The wood of the bar under his fingers, worn to a high gloss by years of bar rags and coat sleeves, feels like shaking hands with an old friend. Nearly as familiar as the cigarette-ravaged voice that greets him. 

“Well well, look what the cat dragged in. It’s been _ages_.”

“If it isn’t Ms Fox herself.” 

Still kicking around. 

“In the flesh, handsome.” 

And the old vixen hadn’t changed a bit. 

John grins – a little lopsided maybe – feeling the way it crinkles the corners of his eyes now, and letting it. Even the proprietress here is a walking cliché, but he dares any red blooded man alive to take one look at that bouffant hair, scarlet manicure and obnoxiously indecent cleavage and not crack a goofy, lecherous smile. 

“Why don’t you have a seat in one of the booths, I’ll send someone over with your usual,” she suggests with a wink and a nod over her shoulder. “Hired three new girls this month – Helena’s a redhead, even.”

“No more redheads, Madge,” John replies, taking his gaze off the girls eyeing him prospectively from the corner and murmuring to each other behind their hands. 

He thinks about asking the name of the willowy pixie with the big brown doe eyes, but it seems like asking for trouble. The same kind of trouble that’s driven him out of the house tonight – the kind that, these days, comes in the shape of dark hair falling softly over intelligent eyes and plump, pouty lips that never seem to stop moving long enough for John to keep his damn eyes off of them. 

“Tonight I’m just here for the whiskey.” 

She pours him one, God bless her, bottle already in hand and with no more comment than the lift of one over-plucked eyebrow. 

He takes a sip, follows the trail of the warmth and the burn down his throat backward in time, and lets his mind retrace the steps of just exactly how in hell he ended up here.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d2.png.html)

It should have probably been weirder than it was, being this familiar with another man’s boxer shorts.

When John looked over at the kid in the hospital bed next to his, all mellowed out on painkillers and rosy adrenaline afterglow, and offered him a place to stay until he found his own, he fully expected to end up regretting it. 

He’d been almost a little ashamed at first, that it took the anonymous charcoal suit and cheesy oversized wristwatch ‘stopping by’ to offer room and board while they wrapped up the reporting, to remind him the kid had lost almost everything he owned in the damn Fire Sale – and from the sound of it, had no place to go. 

John knew the kind of place the Feds planned to stick him in. They’d call it a hotel room, sure, but the only real difference from a jail cell would be the bars weren’t made of steel. The guards outside the door would be real enough, and so would the interrogation that would go along with wrapping up their ‘reporting’. 

And from the way he kept his head down while he muttered his thanks, and that he’d ‘have to think about it’, the kid knew, too. 

So John said there was no way the guy who saved his daughter’s life was going to waste taxpayers’ hard earned cash staying in some flea-bag joint with basic cable. Not when he had SportsChannel and a perfectly good spare bedroom going to waste at home. Then that head snapped up, and those big brown eyes with their morphine-drowned pupils lit on him, with surprise and relief and gratitude. And maybe something like _trust._

Being divorced for eight years, and separated for nearly double that, with a couple of kids who weren’t quite as grown up as they liked to think they were, meant nobody had looked that way at John McClane for a hell of a long time. 

It was nice, feeling like maybe he got something right for a change. That after busting his ass running around for 72 hours without shit like food, or sleep, chasing psychotic terrorist assholes and putting his life on the line – and then getting motherfucking shot again – just trying to make sure the country they all knew and loved still looked the _same_ when the sun came up again… Well, maybe he could finally do something that would make an actual difference to somebody. 

Maybe it was just nice to be needed.

Eight and a half or so months later, Farrell was still a pretty good roomie, as roommates go. He made sure there was always cold beer in the fridge, and he picked up a copy of The Times whenever he went out for milk or Red Bull – even if it did come with a healthy dose of attitude about shit like government propaganda and the rape of the Indonesian rainforest. 

John liked the goddamn crossword, and Matt knew it. And he never made fun of him for sitting at the table with it half the damn day on a Sunday, in the little wire-rimmed reading glasses that made him look like a geezer.

He would even throw a couple of John’s things in along with his, when he did his laundry. So as he made his way around Matt’s room, picking up the few sweat socks and t-shirts left draped over the desk chair and tossed on the bed, John figured a little reciprocity was only fair.

He didn’t know if Matt’s wardrobe was this limited before his tiny crap hole of a Jersey apartment went up in flames, but from what John could see, the kid lived in a couple of pairs of blue jeans and a rotation of layered shirts John could probably count on his fingers and toes. 

All Matt’s t-shirts had weird, incomprehensible junk plastered all over them. Shit like one of the white Darth Vaders from Star Wars, or a fat little cartoon penguin, or the one that said:

FLOWER SNIFFIN  
KITTY PETTIN  
BABY KISSIN  
CORPORATE ROCK WHORES

So it was probably not all that remarkable that John noticed when something turned up that he hadn’t seen before.

It was a plain, darkish green with that washed-out look most of Matt’s clothes shared, but this one looked suspiciously deliberate, like it might have come from the store that way. Some place called _Hollister_ if the name – and the tiny bird-in-fight logo – on the tag were any indication.

John was holding it up to his nose for a quick sniff-test before he realized he wasn’t working a case here, and maybe it was a weird thing to do. But it confirmed his suspicions. It had that sharp, musky guy-smell and some trendy aftershave or cologne. 

Matt didn’t wear perfume. Hell, it was probably bad for the endangered Moroccan baboon population or some shit. So if Matt had been out buying himself grown up new outfits and spraying himself with simulated frat-boy pheromones, it could only mean one thing. 

A girl in the picture.

John smiled a little to himself, swept up in a bit of an “attaboy” moment. He couldn’t help being irresistibly, maybe even fondly, reminded of the first moment he’d met Matt – and promptly underestimated the plucky, tenacious little bastard’s jock size. A mistake it turned out could be fatal if you were Thomas Gabriel. 

There was something about Matt that seemed to have a way of sneaking up on you like that. It had been almost too easy to write him off, this reedy, smart alecky kid; the first words out of his mouth just begging for somebody to shut it for him. All bad posture and bad attitude, holed up in the dark with his computers and his geeky trader crap all over the joint.

_You play with dolls? Not spending a whole lot of time with the girls, huh._

Now that he’d gotten to know him, John figured a lucky girl or two could do a lot worse than Matt Farrell. 

Even a guy like John could tell you the reign of the football jock was over. Smarts were it these days. Computers and technology shit were the way of the future whether he liked it or not – and Farrell had it in spades. 

Besides, he was dedicated and true and gutsy when it counted. Hell, he was even probably sort of cute in a big-eyed, shaggy mutt, puppy-dog sort of way. 

John was grinning to himself again by the time he made his rounds and was on his way back out of the room. 

“Wasn’t sure you had it in ya, kid.”

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d1.png.html)

Back in the early days, things had worked out more or less out of necessity. Or maybe it had been the drugs. It was just kind of funny – you could almost call it _convenient –_ the way their injuries sort of complimented each other.

Inasmuch as being shot is ever fucking convenient. 

The surgery on his shoulder felt like it took longer and longer to heal up every damn time he did something stupid to it, and he’d done his share. Although he could admit shooting himself through a bullet hole Gabriel had just put in it probably took the cake. 

Mostly what it amounted to, was the fact that this time around he was in a sling for what felt like forever, and it turned out it was really handy having somebody around with two good hands for doing things like stacking the dishwasher or getting the lids off their Vicodin bottles. 

The problem for Matt, though, was the mobility issues. While John couldn’t do much for how long it took the kid to manage stuff like getting to the washroom, he did have some tips on figuring out how to shower with a cast on, and he could be the legs for handling things like answering the door to pay the pizza guy. 

As funny as it might have been watching Matt trying to make change the first time, with six takeout boxes to juggle and crutches to balance. 

They spent most of those days floating on a painkiller haze, lazing around on the couch trying to find shit to watch that they wouldn’t argue about. That was where Lucy had come in, most of the time. 

She seemed to have an uncanny knack for picking the right nights to show up at the door with some sort of peacekeeping DVD. She brought stuff they could all agree on, like action or westerns or caper stories with elaborate heists and high speed car chases in stolen vehicles – even if the latter made Matt shift and squirm and cast John surreptitious, uncomfortable glances throughout the whole damn film. 

By the third one in a row, though, even Matt had figured out she was doing it to him on purpose.

It had settled into a sort of tradition that the three of them seemed to be hanging on to so far. Even if the movie selections had gradually started to cater a little less to John’s personal tastes, having his daughter back in his life was one of the bright spots to come out of his Gong Show of a summer, so he wasn’t about to complain. Not about that anyway.

“My shoulder is really killing me,” he complained instead. More for something to say than anything else, although it was true. He rolled it a little, and stretched his neck. They had paused for a break and the hero’s face was frozen across the screen in a mid-profanity grimace. The actor kept reminding John of somebody he knew forcefully enough to be distracting. “Don’t know what I did.”

It had been Matt’s turn to choose, and they were watching something called _Snakes on a Plane._ Three guesses what it was about. 

Lucy didn’t seem to find it as hilariously ‘ironic’ as Matt kept insisting it was. John was finding some of the airplane sequences a little too close to home to pay attention properly, but if he had to pick a side, he’d probably have to say it seemed to be as bad as Lucy said. She was looking impatient with the interruption none the less, however.

“You don’t?” she commented archly, pointedly checking her watch. “Are you sure the thing you did isn’t busy taking its third bathroom break in under an hour?”

“Lucy! Christ.” He wasn’t used to it yet, this adult version of friendship with his eldest. 

She was teasing him, but John couldn’t help himself. He shot a quick look over the back of the sofa, to be sure the door down the hall was still shut and Matt was still well out of earshot.

The action made his shoulder twinge, and he rolled it again. He pulled it all the way up to his ear, bunching the tendon up to try and put a little give in the tension. 

“I’m just saying, Dad.” Lucy sing-songed, scooting across the couch into back-rub range, and then shoving at him until she was satisfied with his position so she could work. “When Matt moved in here, I gave it two months _tops_ before he ended up an obituary for hitting on me or, like, making fun of Roy Rogers. Hell, even Matt only gave it four.” Lucy’s fingers found the sore spot like a heat-seeking missile, and pressed in with just enough pressure to be painful. “Thought maybe he’d started doing something to earn his keep around here.” 

“Har-dee-har.” Enough pressure to be painful was also just enough to be useful. John winced and leaned into it. “Not you too. You’re starting to sound like one of the knuckleheads downtown. ‘Paying the rent’ jokes are a real favourite around the precinct these days.”

“Can you blame them? Younger guy, older guy. Living together…” Lucy had eased up on the pressure now and was kneading in soothing circles. She wasn’t half bad at this. John didn’t want to know where she learned it. “It’s pretty much the ultimate cliché, isn’t it? Big heroic cop saves your life, and then takes you in, and gives you everything you never knew you always needed?” she concluded dreamily. 

“ _Enough_ , Luce. Jesus.” This having a grownup relationship with his daughter – hell, any kind of relationship – was all well and good, but he was still her father, for Christ’s sake.

“Relax, Daddy. No really, _relaaaaaax_.” Lucy pressed down on both his shoulders and shook out some of the remaining tension. "Where’s that famous McClane sense of humour? You and Matt have obviously gotten close. I think it’s good,” she said, sounding serious for a moment before stopping what she was doing long enough to make a skeptical scoffing noise and reach out to flick a finger at the edge of a comic book Matt had left on the coffee table. The cover featured a green-skinned barbarian queen riding something that looked like a sabre-toothed polar bear sporting a unicorn horn. “Okay so maybe having a friend has probably been pretty healthy for Matt too.” 

“So it’s okay for us to be _friends_ now?”

“Well I guess it’s a good thing you’re just friends,” she sighed, apparently getting bored with her game of Goading Daddy. “Because either he has the bladder of a twelve year old girl, or he’s hiding out in there texting some new girlfriend.” 

John hesitated, not sure it would be exactly kosher to admit he had reason lately to think she was probably right, but then Lucy saved him the trouble.

“…Or boyfriend,” she corrected herself. It almost didn’t sound much like a joke this time at all.

“I miss anything?” The sudden sound of Matt’s voice breaking in on their conversation gave him a start. 

Lucy felt it. She responded by pressing both palms to his shoulders to keep him still, or maybe just quiet. John turned his head anyway, enough to see that Matt had draped himself over the back of the sofa next to her.

“You should be so lucky,” she told him.

“Awww,” Matt crooned with mock-sweetness when he saw the freeze-framed screen, and tugged at a lock of her hair. “You waited.” 

“Waited, enjoyed a break from the torture,” Lucy replied, with equal sarcasm. “Call it what you want, you still owe us, huge.”

“What! Come on Lucy, admit it, this is _classic_ ,” Matt argued happily, making his way around the front of the sofa to flop down on it and sprawl himself lazily all over the cushion in a way that always made John marvel at just how much space someone that size could manage to occupy. Then he looked over at John and acted like he’d just noticed what Lucy was doing. “You of all people should at least be able to appreciate the commentary on the post-9/11 state of our— Hey, you alright?”

“He will be,” Lucy said lightly. “It just takes old people a little longer to come around. Isn’t that right, Dad?” She was still behind his back, so she escaped the look John would have thrown her. She rubbed in a few more quick little circles, slapped him on the back a couple of times firmly enough to be a surprise, and moved back to her spot on the middle cushion of the sofa. “Oh, crap on a cracker – let’s get this over with, Farrell.”

Matt tossed his phone down on the coffee table before he obligingly picked up the remote and clicked _play_ ; the fact that he’d been carrying it with him lending a little credence to Lucy’s theory about his mysterious new girl – or apparently possibly – boy. 

Just another thing about having his daughter back that John supposed might take some getting used to. Every now and then Lucy was a good reminder that these days they really were living in a brave new world.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d2.png.html)

They never finished the movie. After Matt got up two more times, Lucy declared it a forfeit and punished him by revoking his next turn in the selection rotation and switching the TV over to something called _Project Runway_.

John didn’t bother to intervene. Contrary to its title, at least it didn’t have any planes in it.

“Had enough runways for one night, or you wanna watch something else?” John asked, when it was just the two of them on the couch again.

Matt yawned loudly and looked at his phone, presumably checking the time. 

“I dunno, I was thinking about going out, but now I’m just feeling really wrecked, for some reason.” He rubbed wearily at the back of his neck, and stretched a leg out onto the coffee table. It was the left one, and Matt winced a little when he did it, so John let it go.

“Hell gettin’ old, kiddo.”

“Is that what it is? Then I blame you. Age is a state of mind, McClane, and yours must be contagious.” Matt rolled his head slowly to one side, then the other. “I swear I wasn’t always this lame and misanthropic.”

It would probably make Matt’s night – and ruin the rest of John’s – if he opened up the motor-mouth floodgates by asking what the hell that meant.

“Neck bothering you?” he asked instead.

“Another thing we have in common, huh. I should have hit up Lucy when she was handing out free back rubs and getting all Third Reich with the remote control. It’s been…sort of aching? I dunno, maybe I’m coming down with something.”

Matt was always coming down with something. John hadn’t seen him actually get sick a day since he’d been here.

“You sat hunched over at a computer for four and a half hours,” John said, leaning forward and nudging Matt’s leg off the table. He tried to be gentle about it.

“That’s nothing,” Matt scoffed, as John took him by the elbow. “I used to sit there for thirty. And that was when it was just for fun. If I had a deadline…I. Oh. Oh, you’re going to—okay,” Matt babbled, figuring it out and letting John turn him to the side so he could get at the kid’s neck. 

“Yeah well, you haven’t for a few months. Maybe you should ease back into it a little bit. Slide back, toward me.” Matt shifted around a bit without actually getting much closer, but he dropped his head accommodatingly. John moved closer himself and laid his hands over the tops of his shoulders. Matt was tense, he could feel that in the sharp, sinewy angles so different from the rounded, more meaty ones of his own. “Where’s it hurt?”

Matt made a pensive noise. It sounded like he might be biting his lip. 

John didn’t really need to wait for an explanation anyway, he could feel the answer in the tight lines of tension under his hands, just by running them over Matt’s shoulders. He laid both thumbs on the base of Matt’s neck, on either side of his spine, and pushed. 

“Mm’kay— Oh!” Matt said again. “ _Oh_. How are you _doing_ that??”

John smiled. “Pressure points. If I move my thumb a couple of inches I can temporarily paralyze your left side from the neck down.”

“That isn’t frightening at all. And by that I mean it is very, very frightening. …Why don’t I want you to stop?” 

John wasn’t going to invite more sass by laughing. Matt was still tense. He was holding himself rigid. John focused on working the pressure upward notch by notch, one vertebra at a time. By the time his fingers reached the top of Matt’s spine, there were even goose bumps there.

“Settle down and try to relax.” John changed tactics and rubbed his hands quickly up and down Matt’s arms and shoulders, loosening his posture, if only a little.

“Only you, man,” Matt went on anyway, as John started kneading. “Oh nothing, just pressure points! You have the knowledge and ability to kill a man with a single thumb, of course you do. Of course. Every Chuck Norris joke ever written is based on your true life story, isn’t it? You can tell me, your secret is safe. But just a tip on getting people to relax? It works better when you don’t pick that moment to casually announce your Vulcan nerve pinch can single-handedl— _oh_. Shit, that’s good.”

John chuckled a little this time and Matt fell quiet. He was finally starting to loosen up, and there was no need to nag him to slide closer anymore. Matt was leaning so rapturously into it, and John had to angle forward to get the pressure as strong as Matt apparently liked it. They were so close now the back of that hair of his kept touching John’s forehead. 

Matt’s haircut struck John as a little silly now and then. It was always in his face when he was trying to work and he had to use a blow dryer on it every time he came out of the shower, but he still insisted on leaving it long. This close up, though, John thought maybe he couldn’t blame him. 

Even when John had all his hair, it was never like this. Matt’s hair was thick and soft and it turned out it even smelled nice – a soapy, sandalwoody kind of smell John recognized as the same one that usually came wafting out of the bathroom after Matt finished taking far too damn long in the shower. 

Apparently, they’d never gotten this close before. John wasn’t sure whether that should be strange or not, after sharing a place with somebody this long. He’d never done it with anyone who wasn’t also sharing his bed. 

But now that they had gotten here, he could also tell that if Matt had been wearing cologne these days, he wasn’t wearing it today. There wasn’t much of anything perfumey, just John’s own fabric softener and Matt – a kind of subtle combination of Doritos and that sugary, licorice-y Red Bull stuff, and his warm, sort of earthy, Matt-scent. 

John felt a little nudge of surprise in his chest as he realized it had somehow gotten familiar – though he couldn’t think how or when. Just a side effect of living in the same space with somebody else, he supposed. 

It made sense in a way, but what didn’t now, was that it was nothing like the sharpish, spicy smell on that t-shirt John had tossed in the wash the other day. Then again, if Lucy’s offhanded comments tonight had any insight to them, then maybe that shirt hadn’t belonged to Matt at all.

Matt made a little noise like a quiet grunt; small, but still enough to take John out of the maze of his thoughts.

“That hurt?” he asked, gentling his absent minded kneading a bit.

“Yeah, a little,” Matt admitted. “Don’t stop.”

John chuckled quietly again. They were still close enough it stirred Matt’s hair. 

The goose bumps came up again in reaction to his breath down Matt’s neck, too. John stopped what he was doing for a second, feeling the skin tighten and noticing the way it raised the soft, downy little hairs at the nape of his neck. 

He wasn’t sure why he did it, maybe the kid’s reaction to something as simple as a little blowing in his ear was kind of funny or cute or something, but he brushed his thumb over them again, and Matt shivered.

John took his hand away. He probably shouldn’t have been playing around like this. He clapped it down over Matt’s shoulder a couple of times instead. 

“How’s that?” he asked.

“Hmm?” Matt cleared his throat, and then tipped his head from side to side, testing. “Better,” he said, twisting back over his shoulder a bit to look at him, and then trying to nod at the same time. “Yeah, thanks.”

“Okay.” John clapped him on the shoulder again, a last time. It didn’t make any sense, but it felt strangely awkward all of a sudden. “Well, g’night then.”

“Oh, okay,” Matt replied, sounding a little surprised. 

Maybe he had been a bit abrupt. He hadn’t meant anything by it, but he was already up and off the couch, so he kept moving. He was half way out of the room when Matt spoke again. 

“Hey, John?” John turned around to look at him. “Was it really that bad?” Matt looked oddly small suddenly, sitting alone all squished up in one corner of the couch like that, peering up at him through his bangs with eyes held wide against the sleepiness that was likely starting to set in now. “ …The movie?”

John smiled. “What do you think?”

“Alright.” Matt smiled broadly now too. “Apologies then, man. You can make sure and pick something that will make me want to remove my own eyeballs with a spork next time.” He lifted up a hand and made a vague, waving gesture in front of his eyes.

“Remember that.”

“And thanks again.” Matt sat up straight and set his shoulders. “That really does feel better. You’re good.” 

“Sure.” 

Matt smiled at him again. John nodded. 

Then he turned and walked off down the hall, feeling too weary to try and puzzle out why it felt just a little bit like running away.

~ ~ ~


	2. Spin Cycle

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/2.jpg.html)

 

John put his elbows up on his desk and pressed on his eyelids until white sparks flew in from the corners of his vision and set off his own private little fireworks display. 

The Galliano case was giving him a real pain in the ass. He’d been at it all damn day, and most of the guys had left the precinct hours ago. He had the bullpen, if not the whole damn building, to himself now but for some reason he was still oddly distracted. 

Every time he got anywhere close to getting anything done, his brain just seemed to keep looping back around to the night before – Lucy’s blithe commentary on his relationship with Matt, finding that strange t-shirt mixed up in Matt’s things, the way Matt reacted to having John’s hands on him.

The worst part was he didn’t even know _why_. Lucy’s words last night had been glib and in jest, and it wasn’t even like she was saying anything John hadn’t heard before, right here at the station. 

It wasn’t the teasing that had him tied up in knots about it though, it was that offhanded “or a boyfriend” she tossed out there, with that tone like she wasn’t even thinking about it. 

The thing was, times were different now, and John knew keeping up with them had never been his strong suit. It could have been one of those new politically correct efforts, where you’re not supposed to assume a person is or isn’t one way or another. 

But Lucy and Matt were friendly, John was pretty sure they talked to each other all the time when he wasn’t around – over computers and sending text messages on their cellphones – and it also could have been specifically about Matt. Maybe Luce new something he didn’t.

John still wondered sometimes why Matt and Lucy had never gotten together. That was a cliché too, after all – being thrown into a dangerous situation together, only to survive when the brave, mysterious stranger ends up pulling the trigger that saves your life. And now he was somehow getting the stupid idea that it might have had something to do with him. 

Sure, he’d given them a hard time about it because it was a bitch, watching your kids grow up, but if the truth were to be told, Matt wasn’t the worst Lucy could do - and there was sure as hell nothing wrong with his daughter. It might have been good for them. But apparently he’d had the wrong idea there.

He was probably going and giving himself a whole lot more wrong ideas right now. John sighed, pushed back from the desk, and headed for the restrooms. 

He went to the sink and splashed some water on his face and up over his wrists. He needed to get a grip, he was making far too big a deal out of this thing. It could be nothing, it could be less than nothing. Maybe Matt had grabbed some stranger’s shirt with the rest of his stuff when he was packing up at the gym. Maybe getting a few goose bumps when somebody breathes down your neck or threatens you with full-body paralysis is just a natural reaction. Maybe it wasn’t personal.

It would make the most sense, really. He tried to seriously think about Matt with another man, and it didn’t fit somehow. 

John leaned into the mirror and tried to imagine it, what a guy might see when he looked at another man, how he might find a man attractive. He looked down at his hands – the wide, squareish palms and the thick, blunt fingers holding the porcelain sides of the sink; noted the way the water made the hair on his forearms darken and stand out where it was plastered wetly down against the skin. Then he looked back at the mirror, at the stubble on his jaw and the jut of his chin. He rubbed one of his dripping hands over his shorn scalp and… just didn’t get it. 

But then maybe he wasn’t Matt’s type. Maybe the old adage that opposites attract didn’t apply here, maybe Matt’s type would be somebody a little more like himself. 

Then he was thinking about how a man might look at _Matt_ and find him attractive, and that was easier. Matt was…well not ‘girly’, exactly. As far as John knew most girls weren’t as into shit like samurai swords, or flying simulated fighter jets on their computers, as Matt was. Physically though, Matt was...smaller. He was slimmer, and lankier than what John thought of as your average guy. _Softer_. 

Matt had mild, sort of vulnerable features – eyes that got too big and a wide, expressive mouth that gave away everything he was thinking so that he could never get away with shit. His hair was too long, and it was ridiculous and floppy in a way that made you feel like you had to get your hands on it and smooth it straight all the time…

The door banged open, startling him pretty damn effectively out of his thoughts. He thought he’d been the only one left hanging around this late.

“Still here, McClane?” Costello asked over a shoulder, as he got himself situated at the urinal. “Hope this doesn’t mean trouble in paradise. Wouldn’t want to keep that sweet young thing you got at home waiting.” 

“What makes you think he’s at home waiting for me on a Friday night, and not out on a date with your mother?” John shot back, turning off the taps and making for the paper towels.

“He should be so lucky. Somebody should be takin’ better care of that kid than you, old man.”

“Like you’d know?” John patted the water from his arms, and then his face. “That wife and kid of yours are gonna forget what you look like.” 

“Ha. _She_ should be so lucky,” he chuckled, zipping up. Costello was an okay guy, for all that he was a bit of a jackass.

“I’m packin’ up,” John informed him, tossing the balled up paper towel in the trash and shoving the door open. “Take it from the guy who knows, don’t stay here too late, huh?” 

“You know, it’s never too late to learn from your mistakes, McClane!” Costello’s voice followed him out as the door swung to behind him.

And John told himself he was far too tired to waste any more time on his drive home thinking about what the hell that was supposed to mean.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d2.png.html)

When he finally dragged himself up the front steps, it was to find Matt had already locked up for the night. John fished his keys out of his pocket and wrestled a little with the temperamental old lock. He was expecting the place to be dark when he got inside, but the lights were on in the kitchen.

“There he is!” 

The voice greeting him the moment he walked in didn’t belong to Matt. It was Matt’s friend Bradley, leaning against the counter and hoisting a bottle of beer from the fridge at him in welcome. 

Matt was beside him, perched on the counter with his own bottle dangling from his fingers in a loosely held grip between his knees.

“Oh yeah, hey there.” John tossed them a smile and a nod as he shrugged out of his jacket and made for the coat pegs in the hall.

It had been a while since he’d seen him around. John had all but forgotten about Bradley.

Bradley was the least shy or standoffish of all of Matt’s friends. He didn’t have Warlock’s superior attitude, or that cold, haughty look like that chick Matt used to bring by for a while, there – Sophia.

John had never liked Sophia. Sophia wore shit like leather pants, and tops that John couldn’t be sure weren’t actually underwear, and she had a different colour hair every damn time he saw her. To this day he can’t be sure how many times she let him introduce himself like an idiot before he realized he’d been repeatedly meeting the same person. 

She helped herself to the fridge, and made judgmental comments about ‘vegan cuisine’ while she did it. And for a good few weeks John had been pretty solidly convinced the kid was fucking her. 

The first time John casually referred to her as his ‘girlfriend’, though, Matt had made a sort of incredulous gagging noise around his mouthful of lo-mein noodles. He had been about ready to administer the Heimlich when Matt flailed dramatically for his drink to hurriedly wash the contents of his mouth safely down, and John realized he was meant to interpret this performance as spirited derision.

“Sophie is a lesbian,” Matt had said when he recovered, shaking his head and looking appropriately stunned and dismayed by John’s lack of lesbian gaydar. “And even if she wasn’t…” 

He cast John a sideways grimace that said he wouldn’t, not with several ten-and-half foot poles. Well, at least they agreed on something.

Bradley was different. Bradley called him ‘sir’ until he was asked to call him John. And then he _called_ him John without any stiff awkwardness in it, or insisting on switching to ‘Mr McClane’ instead, or any other bullshit that would make John feel old. 

He was sort of like Matt, if Matt were a bit taller. And blond. And not a sarcastic, smart-assed little imp who liked to get under people’s skin and thought they weren’t smart enough to know he did it on purpose. 

Tonight Bradley had on a t-shirt reading _Ripped for Your Pleasure._ Sure, cute. Next to the text, it also bore a little logo of some kind of bird – some seagull-looking thing John was sure he’d seen before. Having dealt with his coat and keys, John walked across the kitchen for a handshake.

Behind Bradley, Matt was sliding himself gingerly off the counter, and heading for the fridge again.

“Long time!” Brad grinned wide, shaking his hand firmly and then slapping him jovially on the shoulder. The bad one. John smiled back anyway, there was no way he could have known. “How’ve you been?”

“Can’t complain.” 

Matt had retrieved another bottle of beer on his quick trip to the fridge, and he held it out between them, for John to take.

“Well you know I can. And do. But they never listen,” Bradley joked. He clinked the neck of his bottle against John’s and then raised it to his mouth and took a healthy pull.

Matt sipped his drink as well. Then he put a hand through his hair, and cleared his throat. “Well. We should probably…” 

“Right,” Brad responded. “You were going to show me your…”

“Evaluation heuristic,” Matt supplied, smiling down at his toes like something was funny. Maybe he’d had to remind Brad what his math-thingy was called a million times, like he always had to with John.

“Right,” Bradley said again, throwing out another friendly grin. “Nice talking with you, John.”

They moved off down the hall, and John made ready to follow behind, on the way to his own room.

He watched as Bradley turned and gestured for Matt to walk ahead and lead the way, and suddenly remembered where he’d seen that seabird logo before. The back of Brad’s shirt was printed with large, ornate lettering that read _Hollister_.

Bingo. 

And John could bet, if he cared to get close enough, that Bradley would smell of fancy, fratty guy-perfume too. He smiled to himself and took a celebratory sip out of the bottle Matt had handed him. Some cases just about solved themselves.

Of course he felt like a prize asshole now, for spending all that time speculating on Matt and his personal life, in ways that were probably a little bit weird, and assuredly none of his business. He even kicked himself just a little for forgetting about Bradley. He was a nice enough kid, and Lucy was right, it was healthy for Matt to have friends – especially ones about his own age, probably.

Then no sooner was the door closed behind the two of them than there was a short scuffling-sound and a dull thump from the other side.

Years of carrying a set of cuffs, and having to use them more often than he would have liked, had made the fleshy thud of body-meets-wall unmistakable to John’s ears. He turned back. His hand was already reaching out for the knob, the words “alright in there?” on the tip of his tongue, when somebody laughed – and then it was quiet. 

Very quiet. There were no sounds of computerized rocket launchers and machine gun fire, no voices heatedly discussing the conspiracy theory of the day or analyzing the intricacies of Matt’s latest programming challenge. Nobody said anything that sounded anything like ‘evaluation heuristic’.

And that was the moment it hit him that he’d been too busy congratulating himself for Nancy Drewing the hell out of The Case of the Mysterious Cotton Tee, to wonder what Bradley might have been doing in Matt’s bedroom last week not wearing it. 

John made as little noise as possible himself, stepping backward from the door. He tore his gaze off it, and moved himself and his sudden jumble of thoughts away down the hall to his own room. 

Then he laid down to stare at the ceiling to try and sort through them all, on a bed that had never felt quite so cold before now.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d1.png.html)

It’s a glass half empty sort of night, but thankfully when you’ve got Madge around, it’s never more than half. She tips the bottle at him, and he answers the unspoken with a nod.

After this one he’ll slow down. The last thing he needs is to get maudlin. For now, he just watches the drink darken the walls of his glass, and then savours the wet burn of another sip.

The day he met Matthew was one that the greater population of the country still remembered, and John can bet not one of them would say they remembered it as being ‘fun’. 

Strung out on shock and tripped out on morphine in the back of the ambulance after the bad guys were history and the good guys won had been the first time he’d seen him smile. John remembers because of the way it changed his whole face. Lit him up, sorta.

It hadn’t been the last time, of course. Matt smiled when Lucy brought over some old video game or one of Jack’s G I Joes that she’d found at the back of one of her mother’s closets. He did it every time he opened a fortune cookie or a grocery bag, and whenever John cuffed him in the side of the head for saying The Rolling Stones were ‘bullshit’.

…But he can’t think of a time when he’d ever heard Matt laugh. 

John had always felt like Matt kept more or less to himself. He’d managed to pack enough computer gear into the tiny spare bedroom to power the Starship Enterprise, and he certainly spent a lot of hours there – unconventional, ungodly ones, too – at both work and play. But when he thought about it, maybe they had sort of a routine. 

On his days off John cooked something for himself, usually, and his years of solitary bachelorhood made it no surprise that it was easier cooking for two than for one, anyhow. Not to mention a hell of a lot less depressing. 

On the nights he got home late, but not too late to be ordering in, it was just as easy as not to knock on his usually-open door and ask if Matt wanted anything. Besides – John wasn’t entirely convinced that if he didn’t, the kid would actually ever remember to eat. 

They’d hang out on the sofa and watch the news until John got bored of hearing Matt bitch about it – which sometimes took longer than one might expect. When that happened, they put on Turner Classics and John was labeled a dinosaur and a relic, and he obligingly responded with your standard rookie jokes and called Matt a punk and a kid and a smartass. 

Matt is a smartass of the highest order. It could be hard to tell half the time whether he was really pissed off about something or just being a sarcastic little wiseguy for a joke, or when he just plain old wanted to hear himself talk. Sometimes John thinks Matt isn’t even sure. 

It’s not like Matt isn’t _happy_ living with him or anything – at least John doesn’t think so; it can be hard to tell with someone who seems to be at his happiest when there’s something to complain about – but the simple fact of the matter is, somebody behind that door found something worth laughing about. 

And it’s been nearly a year, and John still doesn’t even know whether or not the sound belonged to Matt.

~ ~ ~


	3. Stubborn Stains

  
[](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/3.jpg.html)   


 

 

John really had to get a handle on himself. This distraction thing was starting to become a real problem. 

Two weeks of surveillance and tracking on the Galliano property, and he managed to somehow miss out on one simple elementary detail: dogs.

Not cute little Snoopy types or the kind you take to the hairdresser and come home with bows stuck on all over the place either. Big dogs. Trained security animals. With big, powerful, fuckin’ _fast_ legs and jaws like Cujo. 

The grounds were big enough John managed to get himself up off the ground and out of sight, and the case wasn’t blown. From his perch, he even got enough photographic evidence of the bastard’s meeting with known petty arms dealers that they’d be able to bring him in for questioning on probable cause. But it meant he spent a good couple of hours treed like a goddamn cat, before Galliano saw fit to let the slavering mutts back inside. 

It also meant he managed to rash up his knee real good, and that he put a hole in his last good pair of pants. Which meant a trip to the mall. 

Fucking Rottweilers. He was about a million years too old to be climbing trees.

By the time he got back into the city, he was stiffening up and starting to limp, and he hadn’t eaten since the cup of coffee and two donut holes he called breakfast. 

The limp and the blood on his trousers drew a couple of sidelong looks from the ladies behind the register, but he ducked in and out of the department store without bothering to change and came out with what he needed with about twenty minutes until everything closed.

John looked around the food court and remembered why he hated the mall. There wasn’t a single person his age there. There was nowhere he was going to be able sit down and eat either. All the tables were full of gum-chewing teenagers making out and trying to share single sets of headphones. 

John looked around at his options. It looked like four, no, five kinds of burger joints, tacos, a deli, pizza and pasta, one of those fancy coffee places that had a whole menu somehow but didn’t seem to serve anything else, or fried chicken. John headed for the deli, thinking if nothing else a corned beef on rye would be easy enough he could eat it sitting in the car. 

On his way there, his eye picked out somebody standing in line at the coffee shop he recognized. He probably should have stopped on his way past to say ‘hello’ or something. He wasn’t quite sure why he didn’t. 

John used to like Bradley. 

Bradley recognized the old ’72 Buick John had sitting in the driveway for the classic it was and didn’t use words like ‘bucket’ or ‘emissions’ like Matt did every time John actually found the time to get out there and get the tarp off her. He didn’t look at John like he was from outer space when he made small talk in the kitchen about last night’s football scores, either. Bradley was a regular guy. 

Or so John thought. Until Matt had walked out of the bathroom two mornings ago wearing the green t-shirt. And then John thought maybe Bradley wasn’t so much a regular guy as the sort of guy whose clothes Matt felt comfortable wearing. Possibly _sleeping_ in. 

Maybe Bradley wasn’t so much a regular guy as he was _Matt’s_ guy. 

It shouldn’t make a difference to anything. It was the 21st century or whatever, John knew that. What it did do though, was make what John saw happen next not make a lick of goddamn sense. 

There was Bradley, leaned up against the counter, chatting animatedly with the girl behind it. He had his cellphone out, and it looked like he was showing her something on its tiny screen that was making her laugh. Innocent enough, John supposed. Who knew, maybe they were friends, or cousins, or he worked there with her when he wasn’t hanging around Matt and pretending to care about heuristics or something. 

Then she pointed to the name on her nametag, so that Bradley could see how to spell it as he typed her number into his phone. 

John left the food court without his sandwich. Because if Bradley saw him standing there and came walking over, John was going to have a hell of a lot more to say to him than ‘hello’.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d2.png.html)

By the time he got himself home, John was wondering whether they had any of their old Vicodin tablets left laying around. He was considering checking with Matt, if his door was open when he got in, but the moment he did everything was immediately driven out of his head to make room for the bitter, acrid smell of burning.

The whole place was full of smoke. 

A flare of panic went up in his chest like lighting a match. John dropped his bags from the store and rushed into the hall. 

“Matt!? Where are you, kid, you alright?”

A metallic crashing sound from the kitchen answered him before Matt did. “In here!”

John hurried around the corner to find him collecting several pots and pans off the kitchen floor and trying to fit them all into the sink.

“What the hell happened in here?” John asked, looking around quickly. “There a fire?”

“Um. There was,” Matt said breezily over his shoulder. “But it’s out now, so y’know, crisis averted, safe and sound! Move along, nothing to see.” The pots settled in the sink, making another loud clanging clatter that made Matt jump and curse, but they didn’t end up on the floor again. 

“What the hell happened to you?” he asked finally, turning away from the sink. “It’s almost—WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?”

John looked where Matt was looking, tucking his chin and taking in the damage for what was really the first time since it happened. It was no wonder he’d been getting some strange glances, although it looked worse than it probably was. What was left of one leg of his pants was covered in blood, and the other was in just about as bad shape with mud and grass stains. Even his hands had streaks of blood and soil from trying to brush himself off.

“Tree,” John said, waving a smudged hand dismissively. “What’s going on in here?” 

This had to be some kind of science experiment, Matt couldn’t cook anything that didn’t come out of a microwave.

“A tree did this to you? Do I even want to see what happened to the tree?”

“There was also a dog,” he admitted. 

Every pot John owned appeared to be in the sink, except for the biggest one, which seemed to be on the stove and full of boiling water.

“A dog, you’ve been bitten by a dog!?” Matt rushed across the kitchen, bending forward toward the gash on his knee, but John caught him by the elbow before he could do anything like grab for it. “You might need stitches, John. Or shots! Have you been to the hospital?”

“Not bitten,” he said dispassionately, trying to sound soothing but probably just coming out impatient. “The tree was for getting away from the dog.” 

Now he could see that Matt was in a bit of a state himself. There were spots of a snowy white powder and splatters of something dark and burnt-looking staining his shirt. A greasy black line of ash was smeared over the curve of his cheek. John brushed some of the powder from Matt’s shoulder, and checked his fingers.

“Baking soda,” Matt explained, eyes still on his injured leg. John’s theory tipped further toward science experiment, for sure. There was no way Matt was baking. “Did you know that throwing water on a grease fire actually makes it worse?”

John actually did know that, but at the moment he had other concerns. Starting with the big butterfly bandage that was on the back of Matt’s hand.

“What is that, you burn yourself?”

“Only a flesh wound,” Matt jerked it away from him like it might hurt if he touched it, and covered up the bandage with his other hand. He leaned forward for a better look at John’s knee again. “You’re telling me you _skinned your knee_. Climbing a _tree_. Can we just agree right now that you’re never allowed to call me ‘kid’ again?”

“It was a pretty big dog, kid.” Matt ignored him and reached out tentatively again. John let him gingerly peel the torn fabric of his khakis away from the wound this time. Matt pulled a face when he saw what was underneath, but he still had some explaining to do. “What about you, you wanna tell me why you lit the place on fire while I was out?”

Matt spared him a glance, then went back to his cringing examination. 

“Yeah, you left those pork chops out defrosting on the counter, but then you didn’t come home.” If there was any accusation in the tone, it was drowned out by concern. Matt was working on settling himself on his knees for a closer look. His frown got a little deeper while he did it, like it hurt him. “And I didn’t know what you do with that, like can you put that back in the fridge? So I thought, you know, I’ll just make dinner, sort of a nice thing to do, and how hard could it be right?”

“And _after_ the Fire Department left…”

“They brought the cutest little Dalmatian,” Matt bantered back, putting his head back and twinkling up at him before getting serious again. “Then I figured you’d still want to eat when you got in, and since spaghetti is the only thing I know how to make—” Matt waved backward over his shoulder vaguely, indicating the pot on the stove. “But then I thought I’d probably better clean up first. You didn’t see it in here, I mean it was a _fire_ and baking soda is brutal and can we maybe focus on the fact that you obviously need medical attention?”

“So you nearly burned my place down and gave me a heart attack just to boil some water.”

“That’s…simplistic,” Matt said, getting to his feet. This time John was sure he didn’t imagine the grimace that went with it. “But succinct.”

John watched Matt buzz around the kitchen, retrieving a box of Band-Aids from the counter that he’d obviously used to doctor himself earlier and wetting a fresh dishcloth in the sink. He was moving sort of stiffly; the line of his spine looked tensely overwrought, and the motion of his hands was jerky with an air of staved-off fatigue.

John could sympathize. It was clear now neither of them had eaten, and the adrenaline burst of expecting to run into the kitchen only to find it engulfed in flames, with Matt unconscious on the floor from smoke inhalation, was starting to wear off now, and his knee and head were both throbbing dully. 

His back and his bum shoulder had spent afternoons in much better circumstances than being jammed up in a tree, and even the palms of his hands must have been scraped raw on his climb, or the way back down, because there was a slight itchy, stinging tenderness there now that he was still enough to notice it.

“Looks like you’ve got a bit of a limp going on yourself there,” John noted, as Matt came back to stand in front of him. He took a breath this time before getting to his knees.

“It acts up sometimes,” Matt said, absently. For the most part, Matt had healed up pretty impressively. Unfortunately though, John was familiar with being shot on an intimate basis, and he knew if the kid were anything like him, he’d have the odd day like this the rest of his life.

“What happened, one of your dates get a little too frisky?”

“You know it’s weird, but I’m starting to feel like I’m being interrogated?” 

The touch of Matt’s washcloth was gentle, and John had seen with his own eyes there was nothing but water on it. It still burned like a motherfucker, though.

“I’m just…you know.” He gritted his teeth while Matt continued his careful dabbing. “We used to hang out more than we do now. You used to tell me stuff. On the personal level – like about your friend Sophia being a lesbo, that kind of thing. I’m just – ow, _son of a_ – checking up on you.” 

"Well. Appreciate the sentiment on hanging out, but I definitely don’t need ‘checking up on’.” Matt put the washcloth down finally, and started digging in the box of Band-Aids. “And just a request, if you want to be having meaningful heart-to-heart chats, could you maybe not use words like ‘lesbo’ in front of me for the remainder of…forever? Fuck.”

Matt said it with a smile, but it was of the ‘suffering fools’ variety he made to himself from time to time that meant John was acting like a caveman, in his highly-evolved opinion. He shook his head disbelievingly.

“I didn’t say it to offend you, Christ.” There was no reason it should sound defensive, but it did. The throbbing in his knee was spreading to his whole leg, now. “You said she was a lesbian, I thought that was just a short form.”

“It is. An offensive one.” Matt didn’t look up. Apparently John had managed to do enough of a number on himself that one of the large bandages wasn’t enough to do the trick. Matt had already pressed two of them gently over his skin and was working on tearing the wrapper off of a third. 

John looked down at the top of Matt’s head, bent over his task. There was a white streak of baking soda powdering the dark strands of his hair on one side. He reached out to brush it away but something stopped him. In this position, the motion seemed intimate in a way that might make what he had to say next sound like it was bordering on inappropriate.

John thought back to the sensitivity training the Department made everybody sit through back in the nineties, and tried to think of the right words.

“…I’m not a homophobe, Matt.”

Matt sat back on his heels, gave a little toss of his head to flick his bangs out of his eyes so he could look up at him. “Why do I feel like the response you’re looking for isn’t ‘Congratulations’?”

So damn smart all the time. Not that John had ever made any great claims of subtlety, but it was like Matt’s brain didn’t have an off switch. John sighed.

He wished Matt would get up now that he was finished patching him up. Having him on his knees in front of him was making this more awkward than it needed to be.

“I know, Matt,” he admitted. “I know about you and Bradley. I found some of his stuff in the laundry and I…” Better to get it out in the open. Right? “Heard you. In your room the other day.”

“Oh, God.” Matt let his head fall back even farther and looked up at the ceiling in embarrassment. There was no need for that.

“Nah, come on, it’s good. It’s great for you. You know, you don’t get out enough.” Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, because Matt directed another incredulous Cro-Magnon-enduring grimace up toward the light fixture, and added an affronted scoffing noise for good measure. “I want you to be happy,” he amended. “I just hope, you know, you’re being a bit careful with this guy.”

“Wow. I’m gonna stop you right there.” 

Apparently Matt was starting to find their positioning a little less than appropriate for their discussion as well. He turned his head away and struggled to his feet, reaching up for the counter with one hand to pull himself up and grunting a little with the effort. John wondered how Matt had managed to climb up and sit there the night Bradley was here, given the kind of difficulty he was displaying right now. 

“Look,” he said, when he was on his feet again. “I’m sorry you walked in on us that night, okay? It was supremely awkward and believe me, nobody regrets it more.” 

Walked in on them. That was news. John couldn’t help but wonder what exactly he had ‘walked in on’. Maybe Matt had had a little help getting his ass up on that counter. 

He looked at Matt, standing in front of him, blushing and babbling, and wondered how he might do it, where his hands might go – under his arms like picking up a little kid? To that narrow waist the same way you would lift up a girl? Or would Matt do most of the work, wrapping his legs around him and hanging on tight? He was tired, and getting distracted. Matt was still talking. 

“But this was painful and dysfunctional enough the first time, when my parents found my download of _Spring Break: Young and Hung_ in a box of old Spiderman comics they were going to donate to the book drive. So if we could just skip right over the gay birds and bees talk I can assure you I’m—”

“What? No!” John stopped him before Matt gave him even more information – and more images – he hadn’t been bargaining for. “Would you shut up and listen to me for once in your life? When I said ‘careful’ I just meant guys like that are—”

“Guys like what?” Matt interrupted, moving backward a step and folding his arms across his chest. “Guys who sleep with other guys? You mean _fags_ , McClane?”

“Would you give it a rest with the Human Rights Act, I said I thought it was a short form, alright? For chrissakes Matthew, I’m just trying to say I should be taking better care of you. When I took you into my home, I wasn’t doing it so you could…”

“Fuck men in it?” Matt muttered, knowing damn well it was loud enough for John to hear.

“GET YOURSELF HURT,” John talked loudly over him, “by some jerkwad you’re carrying a torch for, who’s just going to break your heart and move on to the next sap.” 

There. Now that he’d made his point maybe Matt could slow down a damn second and realize John was just trying to look out for him. 

It wasn’t what happened though. Matt leaned forward. His eyebrows shot up and his eyes and mouth opened wide in a shocked, soundless ‘Ha!’ of irritation. Maybe the word ‘sap’ had been a little harsher than John had wanted to be.

“Carrying a—unbelievable.” Matt uncrossed his arms so he could throw them up in the air, and make agitated gestures while he talked. “This is beyond the—you have no idea, do you?” he stammered on, apparently too incensed to find the words to properly express his outrage. “Do you even see it, the absolute unmitigated irony of _you_ getting involved in my personal life? Of dating advice from you?! I kind of can’t believe that I’m here, having this conversation happen. Y’know, Lucy warned me you’d—”

“Lucy!?” John interrupted. This was a fight now, he realized. They were fighting. And if they were going to do this, you could bet they were going to fight fair. “You want to leave her out of this, Farrell, this isn’t about her.”

“No? That’s good, that’s refreshing, because I’d sure as hell like to know what it IS about!” 

Matt’s voice was just about loud enough to be called a shout now, and John matched it.

“What the hell do you want from me!? You want me _not_ to care? Am I not supposed to give a shit when I see you one day, _sleeping_ in some guy’s clothes, and then the next I go out and I see him sleazing around the mall making time with some trampy-looking—”

“Whoa, whoa!” Matt said loudly, holding up a hand up in the air. “Red light. Let’s back up the express train to Guantanamo a second. Are you telling me you’ve been _stalking_ him?”

“I didn’t stalk him, Matt.” John put his hand up across his eyes and pressed his thumb and forefinger into his temples, tried to push away the creeping feeling they’d had this argument before. “Running into somebody in a public place is not stalking.”

“Oh really? Are you the expert on stalking now? Because it’s sure starting to sound like you’ve been going through my things, and listening at my door.” 

John dropped his hand and looked at him. Matt was pushing the back of the hand with the burn on it into his hip like he’d hurt himself waving it heatedly all over the place, but he was too busy being a smartass and glaring eye-daggers across the kitchen at John to pay much attention to it. 

“And now you’re ‘running into’ him,” Matt went on. “So if I call him up and tell him you mentioned you ran into him and ask what you talked about he’ll be able to back up your story? Or even know that you were there and not, oh say, ask why I’m _having him followed_?” 

Matt stopped ranting long enough for them to fume silently at each other for a minute. 

“…That’s what I thought.”

“Didn’t have to follow him,” John answered, angrily. Matt’s accusations were complete bullshit, but they were starting to get to him anyway. “It’s not like he was hiding anything, he was right out there in the open with this girl. And, sue me, I thought that you should know! Did you forget it’s my _job_ to be the expert on stalkers? And serial killers, and pimps and a shitload of other people who all seem perfectly nice until they turn out to be dangerous.”

“Dangerous!?” Matt’s voice shot up several notches in volume again. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but I have known Bradley a lot longer than I’ve known you, and I didn’t hear you warning me about the dangers of strangers with candy when you asked me to move in here! And Brad, by the way, has yet to get me shot! Or have a flying Ford Taurus chucked at my head, or threaten to paralyze me on his couch on movie night!” 

“I didn’t mean the guy’s a physical threat, Matt, Jesus.” The fact that Matt thought that was the only way a man could get hurt was a testament to how naïve he really was about his situation. 

Matt was really on a roll now though, throwing his arms in the air again and carrying on too loud and too fast for John to even try to make his point.

“Oh so now this is about defending my VIRTUE? Okay.” Matt took a step forward, advancing on him with a hard fire blazing in his dark eyes. A familiar-feeling punch of dread for what was about to come next hit him right in the chest. “You know what? I put up with you acting like I’m one of your kids. I can even deal with you using derogatory slurs that sound hateful but are just plain unadulterated _ignorance_.” 

Matt jabbed a finger at him and the dull sense of déjà vu deepened, making him feel more and more sure they’d had this same damn fight already, and then Matt delivered his _coup de grace._

“But here’s a hot tip that’ll break the case wide open, Detective: you might have saved my life a couple of times – or a hundred, sure, who’s counting – but I’m not actually a _DAMSEL IN DISTRESS_!”

And that was when the penny dropped. John _had_ had this argument before. Just not with Matt.

John had done all of this before – the coming home late and tired; the standing in the kitchen, sore and hungry, amidst the ruin of a thanklessly prepared meal never to be eaten, and with the rueful ache of hollering still burning in his throat.

What a time for the words from a goddamn urinal conversation of all things to smash into him like a four hundred ton freight train.

_You know, it’s never too late to learn from your mistakes, McClane._

It took a second, but he kept his voice quiet when he spoke again. 

“You done?”

“What??” Matt was still angry. His eyes were slitted and the single syllable seethed with unvented rage.

“I’ll listen ‘til you’re done.” He held up a placating hand. “Have your say. But just…take it down a notch, alright? No more shouting. I don’t wanna fight, Holly.”

It looked like Matt heard it before John did. He was staring dumbly at him, eyes wide again now and cradling the hand with the bandage on it unconsciously in the palm of the other. 

Matt blinked, and drew back from him slightly. John almost didn’t think he could feel worse if he’d hit him.

There was a bubbling sound coming from the stove that seemed abruptly loud now against the sudden quiet. Matt’s pot of water was still boiling. 

John walked wordlessly across the kitchen and snapped off the burner. Matt pivoted quietly out of the way to let him pass. The water had steamed itself down to almost nothing.

He was way past wanting to eat anything now. There was a sick lump sitting heavily in his gut, like cold lead. 

“Old habits…” John finally said, if a little thickly. Not exactly ‘I’m sorry’. Story of his life.

“Sure,” Matt replied, nodding and letting him off the hook anyway. 

John waited, in case Matt really did have something more to say, but he was just standing there, and starting to fidget. He brought a hand up and combed his fingers nervously through the hair at the back of his neck. 

John sighed, and took a step closer. Matt froze.

He couldn’t bring himself to do what he should have done with Holly all those years, which was pull her close, wrap his arms around her and apologize. And apologize, and apologize. Maybe until she shut him up with a kiss.

But he did what he could, and placed a hand on each of Matt’s shoulders, hoping it would work to kind of settle him.

“You’re right,” John said, pretty well realizing it was true just as he was saying it. He patted Matt’s arm, and tried not to be discouraged when it made him flinch in surprise. “What you do in your bedroom, and who you choose to do it with – none of my business, you’re right. I just…” _Want to take care of you. Feel like you should be more careful. Think your boyfriend is a monumental dickhead._

“…Don’t wanna fight.” 

John brushed some of the baking soda dusted over the worn, faded fabric of Matt’s shirt off of his collar. He still had some in his hair, and John reached out and carefully brushed that away too.

Matt didn’t flinch this time. The full, mobile lips parted softly, but nothing came out. 

Then he licked them, and swallowed audibly, before he found his voice. “What _do_ you want to do?” 

Matt’s eyes had kind of a soft light to them now; the anger and the blaze all burned out. John was having a little trouble finding a response himself, suddenly. He cleared his throat.

“…We should probably open up the windows in here,” he said, finally. He looked around the kitchen, taking his hands off Matt’s shoulders. “Let the smoke out. Finish cleaning up.”

It took him a second to meet Matt’s eyes again. When he did, Matt watched him studiously for a moment that felt longer than it probably was. Then he dropped his gaze like a hot potato to the floor, and his hair draped forward so John couldn’t see what his face was doing.

“Right,” he said. He looked up again and gestured with an open palm at John’s knee. “Listen, I got this. You should – you’ve been…mauled by an Ent, so. Go, I got it. …Really.”

He could argue, even if he didn’t know what the hell that meant, but he felt like he didn’t have anything left. He nodded. “Just open up the windows,” he said. “Leave the rest of this, I’ll help take care of it in the morning.”

“I got it,” Matt said again, smiling blandly and without showing teeth. The dismissal was unmistakable.

John just nodded again and tried not to limp too conspicuously on his way down the hall and into bed.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d1.png.html)

He thinks about that laugh from behind Matt’s bedroom door again. Can’t _stop_ thinking about it.

The whiskey that was supposed to be a friend tonight, to help John drown it out, won’t let him forget it. Details he’s not sure were there in the sober light of the moment keep swimming into clarity in the Technicolour hindsight of the inebriated. 

He hears it, over and over in what feels like Dolby Surround Sound. The way it sounded aborted and cut short, almost as if it was stifled by something. Swallowed against someone else’s mouth, maybe. 

But sometimes his mind shows him other images, not of another mouth crushed against Matt’s, but of invading fingers, thrust lustfully in between his lips to meet the slick heat of his tongue. Or sometimes Matt goes to his knees in his mind’s eye, and that sweet, plush mouth busies itself another way altogether. 

Another tip of the bottle meets with another nod. 

He should have slowed down a couple nods ago, he knows. But if he did that he’d have to stop pretending that the slow, jealous smoulder in his guts like angry, glowing coals wasn’t down to anything more than a bellyful of single-malt Jameson’s.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d2.png.html)

The next morning there was no sign that there had been a fire, or an aborted spaghetti dinner, or that anyone besides John had been in the kitchen at all.

In fact, there was no sign there was anyone else in the whole damn house. Matt’s door was closed when John left for work, and it was the same way when he got home. The next morning was a repeat performance. 

So by the time John found the sack just to knock on the door, it was no surprise to find the room empty. 

On the third afternoon Matt finally turned up – and like a bad penny, so did Brad. They made enough noise coming through the door to draw John out into the hall. When he got there, there was Bradley, holding the door with one arm, and using the other to help Matt through it with something that looked long and awkward, if not heavy exactly. 

Bradley nodded at John when he saw him, but Matt didn’t look up until he had dragged the long cardboard box all the way in and set it against the wall.

John walked forward, determined to make nice. He could offer them both a cup of coffee, or a beer or Red Bull or whatever they drank at this time of day, but before he could even open his mouth, Bradley was already excusing himself.

“Okay, if you’ve got everything, I’m double parked, so. You alright?” The first part was addressed to both of them, the second part was for Matt. Matt straightened up, and Bradley reached out and settled a fist on his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Matt answered, dusting his hands off on the back of his jeans, and stuffing his hands into the pockets there. “Thanks again.”

“No worries,” Bradley grinned, laying his palm flat in a friendly grip. “Being the guy who owns a pickup truck is good karma. …Basically I rack up a lot of favours.”

And then, just in case the deeper meaning of the word ‘favour’ had been lost on him, the cheeky little fucker turned and _winked_ at him. John stuffed his hands in his pockets too, before he did anything stupid with them.

Bradley’s hand was still on Matt’s shoulder. He used it to clap a goodbye pat on the side of Matt’s neck before raising it at John in farewell, with a jovial “Cheers!” 

Then he was gone. 

Matt’s head was down, but John could see that his ears were a bright, burning pink. There was a similar heat simmering belligerently in the pit of John’s stomach, and in the fists balled up tightly in his pockets.

John looked at the box Matt had brought into the house, and it wasn’t a box at all. It was a stack of them. Still folded out flat and wrapped in clear plastic from the store.

“So, I’m moving out,” Matt said, following John’s gaze. If he was aiming for a casual tone, he missed it by a couple of flaming cheeks. 

The boiling feeling in John’s innards went icy.

“Sounds a little extreme,” John said, when he could get words out again. It was only their first argument, after all. “Nothing’s changed, Matt. You know you’re still welcome here.” 

“No, I know,” Matt said, nodding and looking down at the floor so his hair flopped around all over the place, covering up whatever was happening on his face and making John crazy. He wanted to grab him, push all that soft, silly hair out of the way. Take Matt’s face in his hands and make him look him in the eye. “But my personal life—”

“Is your personal business,” John said, firmly. “I respect that, I told you that the other night.” 

“Okay. I get that, and thank you,” Matt allowed. “But I also get that respect doesn’t mean you’re exactly comfortable with it.” Matt stopped and looked at him a moment, as if it were a question waiting for an answer. But then he shook his head and kept talking. 

“Look, I just think it’s pretty clear that our lifestyles don’t exactly mesh. And that’s…not going to change, right? I mean, this is me, I can’t change who I am or start sneaking around, hiding things – I mean apparently I literally can’t. Somebody told me once cops can tell when I’m lying.”

Matt looked up at him again and smiled wryly. 

“Nobody’s asking you to,” John replied seriously.

“And I get that too, I do.” Matt nodded again. “But being cool with the way I live my life is only half the battle, right? You also have to be able to trust me to take care of it on my own.”

Matt was looking at him like he was waiting for a response again, but John didn’t have one. He’d made his point. But then Matt sighed like it wasn’t the one he’d meant to make. 

“You shouldn’t be uncomfortable in your own home any more than I should be,” he said finally. This little speech was starting to get sort of a rehearsed quality to it, like he’d been thinking about this a while. Matt shoved his hands into his front pockets. It made the shrug he gave next jerky and awkward. “So. I’m getting my own.”

John wanted to tell him no, not now, not when he had finally figured out what they had here; how he felt about it. This was a partnership. And that wasn’t something guys like them came across every day. 

It was against all conceivable odds, but they had fit together seamlessly from day one, right down to the strange kismet of their symbiotic injuries. Sure, this was still new, this little hurdle they’d run up against, but once they were over it…John thought they would ‘mesh’ just fine.

But then he thought about Bradley’s hands on him – familiar and possessive, and the way they made him blush. He thought about where Matt must have been staying the past couple of days, and he realized he just might be too late. 

This might not even be about him. Maybe Matt had already found a partner. One with more benefits to offer than just a pickup truck. Someone who was giving him things John couldn’t. 

He was making fists again. He unclenched them, and took a breath.

“Sounds like you’ve made your mind up.”

“John, this isn’t…”

“You’re not a prisoner, Matthew,” John cut in, rescuing him from having to make up some god-awful platitude like ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. “If you don’t want to stay with me anymore, then I don’t want you to stay either.” 

He hoped it sounded the way he meant it, instead of bitter or petty. But he couldn’t be sure.

Matt stood there watching him for a minute. The features John was used to being able to read like an open book looked strangely blank and closed off. Then he nodded.

“I’ll be out in a couple days. Probably by the end of the week.”

And then, instead of turning down the hallway and going back into his room, like John would expect, Matt pulled his hands out of his pockets and walked right out John’s front door.

  
[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d1.png.html)

 

When he got home on Thursday night, there was a stack of cardboard boxes sitting in the hallway outside of Matt’s room. 

John didn’t even bother to put down his keys. He dropped Matt’s mail on the top of the pile and walked right back out of the house. 

He didn’t stop until there was a glass in his hand.

~ ~ ~


	4. Tumble

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/4.jpg.html)

The morning after the bar is as hellish as can be expected. John lets himself sleep way too late, and then he forces half a gallon of water down his throat, and his feet into his sneakers, and drags ass to the gym to try and sweat some of the poison out of his veins.

Mostly he ends up taking out some half-hearted aggression on an infuriatingly indifferent speed-bag and then standing for way too long under the shower. He finds the greasiest spoon he can for the last hour of breakfast service.

By the time he drags his sorry ass home again, the place is still empty, but the pile of boxes is still there. In fact, it’s possible it might be bigger. Matt’s mail is gone, though.

He looks at the sofa, but the TV remote looks like way too much work for his thumb to handle, so he drops his keys in the bowl next to the door and heads back to bed. When he wakes up past 3pm feeling nearly human again, he’s pretty pleased with his decision.

That is until he tastes the inside of his own mouth and regrets not making another quick stop at the refrigerator for another half gallon of water first. 

He gets out of bed and opens his bedroom door to a hallway full of people juggling banker boxes.

None of them are Matt. None of them are Bradley either. John thinks about his unfulfilling speed-bag session and wonders whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

One of them, however, _is_ Sophia. Her hair matches her royal blue Wonder Woman tank top, today. John’s sure Lucy had worn one just like it when she was about eight. This one looks like it’s around the same size, too. 

“Oh,” she says, “hey.” She looks about as impressed to see him as always. “Matthew’s roommate,” she adds, by way of introduction, as a few of the kids milling around his hallway stop what they’re doing to acknowledge his presence.

“Hi.” John nods around at the rest of the group, which is made up mostly of guys with beards and too much hair. He wonders why in the hell just because he’d never seen them, he always assumed Matt didn’t have a lot of friends, what with the way he seemed to be addicted to his cell phone. Then again, maybe these days when people needed help they put out a classified ad on the Internet or something instead of having friends, what the hell did he know? “Can I help you guys find anything? Need any help with those boxes?” 

They seem to take the offer for the empty point of etiquette it is, and John makes it to the fridge and the bathroom and back to his refuge without incident. At least until the phone rings.

“How you feeling?”

John can just make out Lucy’s voice over Sophia micromanaging her troops down the hallway. 

“To be honest I’ve been better, honey.” He manages to suppress the groan that comes with the effort of getting himself out of his desk chair to make his way across the room to the door. 

“Seriously, he keeps _floppies_?” A voice John doesn’t recognize floats incredulously in from down the hall.

“Hey, antiques can be priceless, right?” comes a jocular sounding reply, that quickly switches over to an awed sort of tone. “ _Man_ , I wonder what’s on these! I bet some of it is even co-coded with the WAR10CK, too.” 

“Fuck WAR10CK. A F4RR3LL Original would probably fetch a pretty penny over EBay now that he’s, like, some kind of C-lister celebrity.” 

“Gimme that,” Sophia’s voice cuts in sharply. “You’re demoted to hauling comics – over there! If I catch you script kiddies snooping through Matthew’s intellectual property again we are going to have words.”

“This isn’t the best time,” John admits into the phone, shutting the door on the mumbled apologies from Sophia’s lackeys. “Mind if I call you back a little later?”

“Okay. I just wanted to check in on you,” Lucy replies, a little too innocently. “Matt isn’t taking any of my calls.”

“Yeah?” John wanders back over to the little table in the corner and flips the bird at one of the mug shots staring belligerently up at him from its surface. “Well he’s just maybe a little busy. I’m sure he’ll call you when he’s settled in.”

“Settled, where? You mean Matt is actually _going_ somewhere?”

“Careful with that, it’s water-cooled,” John hears from the hall. “THAT WOULD MEAN DON’T TIP IT.” 

Even through the closed door, Sophia’s voice is loud enough that if there were a decibel meter hooked up to his throbbing brainpan, she’d be pushing it into the red.

“Matt found an apartment for himself this week.” The words feel weirdly heavy, like it takes an extra effort from his mouth to get them out. “He’s busy moving into his new place today.”

“Moving!?” Lucy screeches, in a way that makes the decibel meter in his head bury the needle. “I could kill you! What did you do to him?”

“Lucy could you keep your voice down, please? Daddy has a headache, and to be honest he’s not feeling real well.” John shuts his eyes, and presses on the lids for a second. Lucy doesn’t apologize. “And why the hell does everything automatically have to mean I did something to him? Jeez.”

Lucy makes an indelicate snorting, huffing noise obviously learned from her mother that roughly translates to ‘you are too big an idiot to waste words on’.

“I know you’re hungover,” she says anyway, not sounding at all sorry about it. “I guess this means you don’t remember drunk dialing me last night and asking if I knew what his _laugh_ sounded like?” Oh, _shit_. “Come on Dad. What is going on with you two?”

“Nothing.” John shakes his head, even though she can’t see him. “Nothing is going on, Lucy.” What else is there to say? Matt is moving out for Pete’s sake, the words have never been truer.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Lucy, Jesus. Everything is about sex with you kids.”

“Well, not _everything_.” Oh Christ, he is so not in the mood for this. What part of ‘it’s not a good time, can I call you later’ hadn’t been clear? “Trust me Dad, the last thing I want to do is talk about sex with you, God. It’s just…I don’t know, Dad. You’re _different_.” Lucy doesn’t sound snarky, or too loud anymore. “For the last few years you’ve been…we wouldn’t even _hear_ from you for months, and now I’m over there every couple of weeks. You smile. Well maybe not so much the last couple of times, but… Dad.” Lucy pauses, and sighs, and for a second John thinks she might be finished. “I just think maybe you should make room for the fact that…maybe Matt saved _your_ life in a couple of different ways too.”

She really does think he’s an idiot. Hell, maybe he is. John sighs too.

“It’s not like I threw him out of here, Luce.” Well. Not exactly like that, anyway. “Matt’s a big boy, he makes his own decisions. I’m sure he’ll call you when he gets settled in, but I can’t make him stay here, not when he doesn’t want to.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Neither of them says anything until Lucy finally mutters “okay” and “call me” and hangs up.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d1.png.html)

John hears the front door open and then close, and the sound of shifting boxes and unfamiliar voices giving each other lifting instructions gives way to the same oppressive, ear-crushing quiet John remembers from the days before Matt’s incessant chatter, and the constant whir and intermittent blipping noises of computer equipment in every room.

He can stop pretending to be irretrievably immersed in the spread of profile notes and surveillance photos papering his makeshift desk, now. John leans back, pinches the bridge of his nose like the little points of pressure will do anything to clear the lingering fog from behind his eyes.

“For the record…” 

Matt is standing in his doorway. 

He has one hand wrapped tightly around the strap of a bag already slung over his shoulder, and he ducks his head before he keeps talking so that his hair does its thing, sliding forward and covering his face. He looks impossibly young, all of a sudden.

“You were right about some things. It turns out maybe I am just a stupid damsel in distress who can’t figure out when to stop carrying a torch for some jerkwad who’s just going to break my heart and move on.” 

Matt looks up at him now, squares his angular shoulders. 

“But you were wrong about one thing. I wasn’t _sleeping in Brad’s clothes_. Well I mean yes, I put the shirt on. And I might have…gone to sleep. Look, my point is…” 

Matt sighs and adjusts the weight of the bag on his shoulder. 

“Point is, I thought it was _yours_.” 

With that parting shot, Matt disappears from the doorway. 

But then his hand is still there, wrapped around the door frame tightly enough to whiten the beds of his fingernails. John waits for him to say something else, but by the time he realizes maybe Matt was waiting for _him_ to say something, the moment stretches out too long and then those fingers disappear too, and Matt is gone. 

Matt, gone. Ear-crushing-quiet gone. 

One swift movement has John up from the desk and out into the hall. The clatter of the chair toppling in his haste barely registers, like a distant, futile plea against the relentless silence that promises to be the new soundtrack of his life. 

Matt is already at the door, trying to wrestle his feet into his beat up old canvas sneakers without putting down his bag or the single cardboard box he’s now got tucked under one arm. 

“Matt.” John’s voice already seems too loud against the dead-air sound of the suddenly empty space. “Am I the jerkwad?” 

Matt doesn’t answer, just stubbornly keeps jamming his right foot into his shoe. He’s already managed to get the left one on, somehow. 

“…Matt!” It’s a couple of quick strides down the hall, and then John can grab him by the elbow. The motion comes off maybe a little angry – and more than a little desperate – and Matt shakes him forcefully off. Not once, but twice. 

John rallies his patience and raises his hands in the air, tries using words instead.

“You said just now you wanted to set the record straight,” he says, hating the sharp heat of the way it comes out. It sounds like a bark but this is Matt, one of the few people who will recognize this tone from him as quickly fraying panic. “Before you walk out of here forever, the least you can do is tell me.” 

The angry, obstinate line of Matt’s shoulders drops a little in concession, but he still stomps a last few times, makes John wait for him to get done forcing the issue with his Chuck Taylors. 

“Tell me I’m a jerkwad,” John persists, a little quieter. 

Matt turns away from the door to face him, and the heavy resignation written all over his features is all the answer either of them need.

“You’re a jerkwad,” he says anyway.

For a moment his relief at simply having Matt speaking to him again distracts him from the mind-bending weight of what the words mean. This changes everything. And nothing. 

It is the way things have always been, yet now every single thing that ever has been between them is something else altogether. …Massages on the couch…arguing in the kitchen about the irony of John giving him dating advice…Matt thought the shirt was _his_ … He feels turned around and backward and completely fucking mind-shattered. 

“I am,” John agrees, a little unevenly. “I know.” 

Matt doesn’t return the tentative, watery-feeling smile John offers him then, just nods and reaches behind himself for the doorknob. The tiny sound of the latch turning feels huge and inescapable this time, like a terrible klaxon ripping through the quiet of the house.

No. John’s hands are still in the air, and he doesn’t think, just lets them slam forward of their own accord. The sound of the door banging the short distance shut is louder than either of them expect, and Matt blinks in surprise. He shifts his grip on the box he was cradling under one arm, clutching it securely in front of his chest with both hands. 

John doesn’t _mean_ to trap him. He doesn’t mean for his palms to land so hard on either side of Matt’s head against the door like that, or for his weight to shift forward, holding it firmly closed. But he’s not sorry.

He just needs time, a few seconds here to collect his thoughts. If only Matt will give him that, maybe they can figure this out.

“How long,” he manages, “…have I been a jerk?”

Now Matt smiles; small and bitter. He shrugs one shoulder. “Always.”

Always. The heels of his hands are still tingling from the impact when he lifts them away from the door so that he can take hold of the cardboard box between them. 

Matt’s gaze doesn’t falter, he continues looking him defiantly in the eye. John can feel the resistance of Matt’s fingers tightening their hold for a split second, but then he gives in to the slow slide of John drawing the box gradually out of his grasp. 

John doesn’t look away either. He keeps their eyes locked on each other while he leans over just far enough to set the box down on the table by the door. 

He still doesn’t know how to do this, what it is that men do. Do they kiss each other on the mouth? He just knows that _not_ doing it was the wrong move last time, that everything in him is screeching at him not to fuck up, this time.

When he lifts his hand, it’s shaking. A single finger feels like the most contact he can handle – but he slips it under Matt’s bangs, sweeps the hair off his forehead, so he can lean forward and press his own against it.

This close, he doesn’t hear so much as he _feels_ Matt take a slow breath.

Always, he says, _always_. Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Stay,” John says, not caring that it comes out broken and weak, just that he gets it out at all is like some kind of fucking miracle. His throat feels tight, sorta like it’s closing up on him. “ _Stay_ ,” and it’s all he’s got.

He just prays it’s enough.

Matt’s brows knit – he can feel that too – and John pulls back, if not as far as his jangling, screaming nerves would like him to. 

He watches Matt’s searching look pass over his features, and he waits, because there is nothing else to do. He’s given up by now, trying to figure out what goes on inside that head. So he just listens for Matt’s verdict and tries not to feel like a prisoner awaiting sentencing. 

“Okay,” Matt says, and John breathes again.

The single fingertip still hovering hesitantly at the side of Matt’s face traces down his temple, over his cheekbone and under his chin, where John can use it to tilt Matt’s face upward a fraction.

Matt reaches up and grabs him by the wrist. Whether to stop the shaking in John’s hand or what he’s doing with it, he can’t be sure. 

“John, you don’t have to…”

“I want to.” He wants to argue, but it comes out way too soft, needy. “I want…” 

God, he just wants to lie down. The shake in his hands seems to be spreading, and he’s not sure how much longer he can trust his knees. He worries for a split second that Matt will misinterpret the meaning of his glance back over his shoulder at the door to his bedroom, until he remembers he’s not entirely sure anymore that he doesn’t actually mean it.

“Okay,” Matt says again, when John fails to come up with any more words. “…Okay.” He’s smiling a little bit now; helpful. Patient.

Matt still has a hold of John’s wrist, and he uses it to turn them gently around in the hallway. It’s like some kind of weird reversal of their roles, suddenly _he_ feels like the damsel in distress, or maybe even a small child. Matt takes a few backward steps to move them down the hall and back into the house.

Then he lets go and leads by example, walking wordlessly away and into John’s room.

~ ~ ~


	5. Lather, Rinse, Repeat

  
[](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/5.jpg.html)   


 

“Just…give me a second,” Matt says, holding up a hand preemptively when John walks into the room after him.

He’s taking out his phone and typing something in quickly using both thumbs, that John suspects is a text message telling his ride not to wait for him. Sure enough, there’s two short taps on a car horn from outside the window, and the sound of an engine pulling away from the curb. He tells himself he doesn’t want to ask who is behind the wheel, or where Matt has been staying these last couple of days. 

In fact, neither of them says anything. At a loss, John picks up the chair he knocked over on his way out of the room, and sets it upright. Matt busies himself tucking away his cell phone and then pulling his bag off over his shoulder and laying it carefully down in the corner. It would seem like an excuse to avoid looking at him, until suddenly Matt does. 

Then he sighs, walks boldly across the room and sits down on the bed. 

Matt rubs his palms nervously over the knees of his jeans a couple of times while John joins him, perching on the edge and turning to face him as best he can. Now that they’ve stopped touching, John doesn’t know how to start again. 

One of them should speak though, and John feels like that’s on him. He’s the one goddamn _begging_ people to stay, after all. 

Fuck. 

He takes a breath in, then out again, tries to remember where they left off.

“I don’t want to break your heart, Matt,” John says, finally. “I don’t want anyone to.” And if that isn’t just their whole damn problem in a neat little nutshell.

Matt nods. “I know that. That’s why you’re not going to.”

“Don’t be too sure, kid. From what I’m told, I’m really good at it.”

Matt looks at him, but he doesn’t smile, and John realizes this could be getting off in the wrong direction.

It worked last time, so John touches him again – just grazes the backs of his knuckles over Matt’s cheek. There’s time to notice now; how soft he feels, the warmth of skin. His thumb moves over the edge of Matt’s lip.

Matt shifts on the bed as if he’s uncomfortable, but the movement doesn’t take him further away from the touch. If anything he’s a shade closer.

“I…John. I said you don’t have to—”

“Would you shut up with that already? I toldja, I want to.” As if that hadn’t been hard enough.

John’s thumb dents softly into his lower lip and Matt’s eyes close for a beat at the minute pressure. 

“I just…Jesus, Matt,” he falters, because Matt’s eyes open, looking suddenly darker than before, and then so does his mouth – just enough to take the pad of his thumb. Gently, so gently, he feels Matt’s teeth catch the calloused skin and a brief, moist heat of his tongue that is almost over before it begins, and the last of John’s confession comes out in what ends up as little more than a whisper. “…I just don’t know how.”

Matt gives an amused little huff of air over his fingers that isn’t anything like the bright, open peal of laughter from behind his bedroom door that started all of this trouble. John gives up, lets his hand fall back to his side.

“Leave it to John McClane not to know how to do what he wants. Believe it or not it’s a skill many of us come sort of hardwired with. Anyone ever tell you you might be lacking in some basic inborn survival instincts?”

“Once or twice.”

Matt just smiles quietly, and gets up off the bed. John’s hand moves on the coverlet, ready to grab him by the wrist and ask where he’s going, but Matt is already peeling off the outer of his layered shirts and tossing it on the bed behind John. So it looks like he’s planning on staying a while. 

Sure enough, Matt hooks his fingers under the hem of his t-shirt next. Then he stands there, looking at him – just long enough to give John the chance to reach out and stop him – before he starts to lift.

It’s no surprise that Matt is taut and firm, with the supple reediness of youth, but John doesn’t remember ever looking like this; lithe, and narrow through the chest and low-slung hips. He’s seen Matt at the gym, and the effort he puts in is perfunctory at best, but while he might never be able to bulk up, the way he’s naturally lean obviously means he doesn’t have to work too hard for what muscle he does have to start showing under that smooth, young skin either. John can see a few of his ribs, but the subtle rounding in the slope of his chest is there – and the lines of his abdominals are just beginning to show through, running downward to where the apex of each hip bone is peeking out over his waistband.

Matt shakes his hair back into place after the shirt comes off over his head, and holds his hands out in a ‘this is it’ gesture. John does reach out then, for those slim hips, laying his palms flat against denim, and not skin.

“Am I really all that intimidating?” he asks, setting a hand on each of John’s shoulders so he can sling one leg over his knees and sit straddling John’s lap. 

John can feel the backs of Matt’s haunches pressing down onto his thighs with a weight that is unmistakable and _male_ – definitely heavier than anyone John has ever held in his lap, and yet not nearly too much for him to handle. The hands on his shoulders span wide enough for one of the thumbs to rest ticklishly against the side of his neck, making his desire both to knock it away and to move closer to the touch compete with each other in equal measure.

“Oh yeah,” John answers him honestly, watching his hand drift upward like it’s on autopilot, fingers coming to rest with just the tips settling into the warm, smooth dip in the centre of his chest. Matt has only the barest sprinkling of hair, around each nipple and in a narrow, dark little strip leading from just under his navel down.

Matt laughs at that, and there it is – that quick, elusive cascade of sound John has been waiting to hear. And it’s for _him_. 

John catches Matt’s face between his hands, and just kisses him. 

It’s not so different really, from kissing a woman, except for the ways that it is. Noses brush past each other and lips press warmly together – but then Matt’s jaw is sharp, and angled. The skin is rough against his palms with what feels like a couple days’ worth of stubble and when John strokes his thumb experimentally over it, Matt makes a pleased little humming noise in a voice that is low enough it rumbles slightly against the fingers touching the sides of his throat. 

Then Matt leans forward into it, his long bangs brushing John’s cheek, and all that conscious thought wavers and fuzzes and blinks into black like a bad TV signal, and John isn’t kissing a man. He’s kissing Matt. 

Those are Matt’s hands sliding happily around the nape of his neck; Matt’s fingers traveling exploratively up the back of his skull and making his own clench tight in reaction where they have made themselves at home curved around Matt’s hip again. That’s Matt’s mouth, opening up for him – soft and careful, and that is _definitely_ Matt’s tongue, and something…clicks. 

Warmth spills over and floods through his chest, like a dam of ice breaking in spring. Matt melts too, John can feel the tightly held posture relax and go pliant, his signal to pull Matt a little closer up on his thighs. 

It feels like he’s managing this just fine, if he says so himself, and Matt sounds a little breathless when they break apart. Although naturally he’s still got something to say. 

“Good thing you perform your best in high pressure situations,” he murmurs huskily against John’s lips.

John chuckles a little at the irony in the tone, before he realizes that it’s not clear whether this particular performance test has just been completed or whether it’s about to begin. Matt is slipping out of his arms again – and John thinks about telling him he’s really got to cut that out – but this time it’s to sit back down on the bed, toe off his sneakers and scoot backward until he’s reclined saucily against the pillows.

“Been lifting boxes and avoiding you all day, I’m _tired_.” Matt raises his hands in the air, showing off his innocence. “I’ll be a perfect gentleman. …Scout’s honour,” he adds, crossing the fingers of the right. 

John doesn’t bother to correct Matt’s salute, not when his eyes are sparkling with mischief like that, and he’s all splayed out, half clothed and kiss-rumpled. And especially not when he uncrosses his fingers to let them wander lazily over the flat plane of his belly, the pinky dipping naughtily under his waistband. 

This, John knows how to do. This is a game two can play at. 

He gets up off the foot of the bed and makes his way around to stand over Matt. He takes a second to enjoy it – and then another second to enjoy the fact that he’s enjoying it – just watching those slow fingers move over and over that skin. He starts to unbutton his own shirt, getting ready to join Matt in his half-clothed state. He doesn’t hurry.

Matt licks his lips. _Huh._

“It’s only fair to warn you, I was never actually in the Boy Scouts.” 

“We’ll see what we can do about earning you another merit badge, anyhow.” John grins, a little lopsidedly, and finally shucks his button-down. 

He means to lose the undershirt next, but Matt is already reaching up from the bed, pinching the thin layer of ribbed white cotton between his thumb and forefinger and tugging. 

“Yeah, I _still_ don’t know what that means.”

John lets Matt guide him, crawling forward onto the bed and leaning down over him. When they kiss this time it’s smoother, meeting each other halfway and fitting together with a newly familiar warmth and ease.

There’s still lots to explore, though. John’s hand travels down the length of Matt’s torso, over his ribs and down to the subtle curve in his waist. He strokes experimentally over the skin there a couple of times. 

Matt’s hand comes up to his shoulder, pushes at him in a way that makes him stop what he’s doing so he can look him in the face.

“Slow down before I embarrass myself.” Matt smiles patiently; irises a little blacker, and lips a little pinker, and apparently taking his vow to be a gentleman surprisingly seriously. 

John settles down beside him, content for the moment just to look, and to let Matt set the pace, for now.

Matt is beautiful, really, in his way. There’s a grace to the lines of him, a slender strength that can come off gangly and awkward when he holds himself without confidence, but looking at him here, in his bed, Matt seems transformed, as if John is looking at him with new eyes. He’s smooth like marble everywhere, free of callouses and scars.

The light is starting to fade outside the window now, draining the colours from the room and tinting everything tones of grey and pearl. Matt’s pale skin looks like cream now – and it feels a lot like silk – but _alive_ ; warm and yielding, and blushing pink in a couple of spots John can’t seem to stop touching it. 

The reactions he gets don’t hurt either. John draws the knuckle of his index finger from the hollow in Matt’s clavicle, all the way down to his navel and that graceful line of his back bends into an arch. He groans.

“ _Stop_ that, you gigantic, gorgeous fucking cock tease.” 

Maybe he’s been losing track of time. Those are the first actual words to come out of Matt in a while now. 

“Gorgeous?” John parrots, lifting a brow.

Matt huffs, and the back of his hand lands on John’s chest. Not hard.

“You are worse than a girl.” Matt hooks a finger under the yoke of his undershirt. “Take this off so I can show you how pretty you are.” John responds with what is probably a pathetic attempt at a glower. “ _Off,”_ Matt insists, with an impatient little slap at his thigh.

“You, John McClane,” he says, once John has gotten through the awkwardness of sitting up to peel off the flimsy layer of cotton and settling back down again, “are a work of fucking art, I’m so serious.” Matt places a single fingertip in the centre of John’s chest, draws it downward through the patch of hair there until he reaches John’s stomach. “I am one of the few people who know how much time you really spend at the gym, how hard you work.” Matt spiders all of five fingertips out against John’s skin and presses, making the stomach muscles tense and flex. “This doesn’t just happen, man, you _did_ this. This is art.” 

“I mean, these arms are pretty much the equivalent of staring into the goddamn sun,” Matt runs a smooth warm palm reverently up his bicep. “Have you not ever noticed whenever you walk around in short sleeves I have to consciously avert my gaze? If I look directly into them I’ll end up locked in my room with shitty production value internet porn until I go blind, it’s outrageous.”

John can’t help it, maybe this is Matt’s idea of seduction, but it’s ridiculous. He laughs. Apparently it’s what Matt is after though, because he grins happily, and wriggles a little closer.

“This collar bone is a major tripping hazard,” he goes on, laying his index finger over it. “I have literally tripped over myself and nearly dropped a full bowl of Lucky Charms and milk, thinking about licking it.” Matt leans forward, as if about to do just that – and then doesn’t, nuzzling his nose over John’s skin, and running his finger along it instead. The anticipation makes John’s toes curl, none the less. Maybe there’s something to Matt’s tactic after all. 

“And this.” Matt lays his hand gently over the knurled, puckered ravage of scar tissue that is his right shoulder. “I have so many fantasies about this, is that weird? Every scar you have is part of the tapestry of you, you know? I have this recurring…let’s call it a daydream and not a spank bank entry shall we – where you let me find each one and ask you where you got it.” Matt is leaning so close, John can feel his breath across his skin now. “And after you tell me the thrilling, little-known tale of how you saved the world once again, with nothing but an ice pick and two empty halves of a coconut, I get to do this.” Matt leans down again and puts that smart mouth straight to John’s scar, in a kiss just open enough to make him crave the heat of it against his skin again.

“And this…” Matt slides down a bit on the mattress and circles a finger around John’s right nipple, watching the little nub draw tight and swell avidly in response. “Well, we both know how this works,” Matt concludes, nipping at it with his teeth and making the rest of John’s skin draw just as tight all over, and his spine tingle hungrily.

“Well,” John isn’t at all surprised to hear his voice has gone rough and slightly strangled-sounding. He clears his throat. “Nice to know I do it for you.” 

“Are we seriously still playing that game? _This_ is what you do to me.” 

Matt has him by the wrist and is pressing John’s palm over the fully aroused ridge of his crotch before he can react.

John spends a stunned moment watching Matt watch him puckishly, and then he recovers. He rubs once, with the heel of his hand. 

Matt makes a small, surprised sound and bites his lip and – gentleman or not – John can’t _not_ kiss him. He rolls both of them over onto the mattress, so that their bodies press together. They are both bare to the waist now, and the skin-on-skin warms the blood in his veins and makes his breath come faster.

For a moment the creature moving under him is Matt as John knows him, energetic and impatient, intense and pushy, and making a lot of damn noise with his mouth. Until now, Matt has been a different animal in the bedroom, all soft kisses and quiet moans. John likes that just fine, but it isn’t what he’d expect of his generally spirited companion.

Sure enough, it isn’t long before Matt is backing out of their kiss again, just as it was rising in passion. He’s slowing the pace down, pulling gradually back from him and stroking at his skin in slow, soothing lines. 

This is getting to be a pattern, one that John can’t deny is starting to make him a little nuts. Sure, that could be Matt’s plan, but it doesn’t seem like him, and it’s beginning to get a reined-in, tense feel, like Matt is champing at the bit as much as John is. He’s starting to think maybe he should be finding out if there’s a reason why. 

But now Matt is urging John back against the bed, so he can move down over him, using that mouth over his skin to distract himself in ways that aren’t having quite the same effect on John.

“Forever,” Matt murmurs rapturously into his skin, once his breath has slowed enough. “I swear I could lie here and do this forever.” 

John wants to ask if it was like this with Bradley, if they touched this way when they did the things they did behind Matt’s door, or if this is different. He’s afraid he won’t be able to take the words in Matt’s answer, though, any better than he’d handled the asshole’s hands all over the kid by the door this week. 

“Matt,” he says anyway. “Hey. Matt.” John cards his fingers through Matt’s hair, and gives a little tug to get his attention. And then, because he can now, he leaves them there and lets them wander through the soft, dark locks.

Matt lifts his head up from the things he’s been doing in the region of John’s navel, with a sigh and an expression like it hurts him to stop. 

“…Yep?” he prompts finally, once he’s pulled himself together, folding his arms across John’s chest in order to rest his chin on them.

It’s still so amazing to him that this young, vital force of intelligence and energy can come apart like this for his broken down old body and battered, weary soul.

Matt’s lust-face just keeps blindsiding him, blanking out his mind with the way the blown pupils darken the irises enough that they all but disappear; those lips, reddened and plumped from the things he can’t seem to stop himself doing with them; and his cheeks sporting little pink swaths of flush. It’s distracting, and John nearly tugs him back up for another kiss, instead of asking what he needs to know.

“What is he to you?”

“Who,” Matt asks, looking genuinely confused a moment, “Brad?”

“Yeah,” John says, “ _Brad_.” He can admit to more than a little pride of the way he holds back the growl that wants to creep into his voice – but then Matt huffs again like it’s funny anyway. “Is he…are you _boyfriends_?” 

“What, no!” Matt exclaims, looking as scandalized as those lips and those cheeks will let him. Then he sighs. “Do you seriously want to talk about this right now?” 

Hell no. John doesn’t want to talk about it ever. And the idle little circles Matt’s thumb is tracing over and over on his ribcage are starting to make talking seem like an even worse idea by the second. But he has to know.

“So what, you’re…friends with benefits? Fuckbuddies?”

“Jesus.” Matt picks himself up off of John’s chest, and comes to lie beside him again. By the time he’s settled, his face looks thoughtful, calm. “I…don’t know if we’re friends. We chat online sometimes.”

“Chat,” John repeats. “And have computer sex?”

“…Sometimes,” Matt admits. “We work on the same Tiger Teams together, sometimes we have actual stuff to talk about, John.” Matt rolls his eyes, shifts around a little on the mattress. “But if we hook up to hang out, it’s definitely just for the booty call.”

Matt isn’t meeting his eye now, he’s looking down at the bedclothes like he can somehow feel the cold, aggressive clench suddenly torqueing up all of John’s insides into a tightly snarled mess again. John sighs, takes a deep breath before he goes and says something stupid and possessive that fucks this up. 

Then he says something that could fuck everything else up instead. “…I don’t want this to be like that.”

Matt looks back up at him, and that patient, serene look with its ironic power to make him feel like a child – or maybe just an idiot – is back.

“Sometimes, for a Detective, you really are clueless,” Matt says, but it sounds fond. “I can’t fuck you the way I fuck Brad. That can’t happen, man.”

The way the tension in his gut is ratcheting gradually upward at the terms Matt keeps casually throwing around about his relationship with his ‘friend’ are quickly convincing John it’s time to change the subject. He’s just about to make some wisecrack about what the hell they’re doing in his bed then, when Matt knocks the attitude right out of him. 

“I don’t love him,” he says, with a little shrug of a bare shoulder against the sheets.

John doesn’t think he was waiting to hear those words. In fact he’s sure he hadn’t even been expecting to. But apparently some part of him thinks it makes all the difference. 

He rolls up onto his side and into a kiss. Matt moves with him on instinct, flattening himself into the bed so John can sort of loom over him. John brackets Matt in, with an arm on either side of him, lowers himself down and deepens the kiss. 

This is where Matt has been stopping them so far, but if it’s for his sake and not somebody else’s then John doesn’t want it. It may have taken him some time to get on board, but this is what they’ve been headed for, all along. This twisting, bumpy track they’ve been slowly climbing for months, was always, inevitably, going to peak and come roller-coastering down to this. This is what they are now; Matt’s skin and John’s breath and his racing heart and pounding blood. This is right.

John releases Matt’s mouth and moves down over the sharp jut of his jaw. He tastes salt on his skin, and some lingering hint of unfamiliar smelling soap, or shaving cream perhaps – the stubble on both their chins rasps together a moment. When he finds the pulse beating triple time in Matt’s throat and works his mouth over it, sucking and nipping, Matt bends his body upward, pressing closer. 

John presses down, meeting Matt’s motion with his own, and drawing a little harder at the flesh of his throat with his mouth. And there it is, the tipping point. Matt gasps and twists away from him, trying to push his hips back down against the bed and put some space between them, but John follows him down, angling against him and pinning him still.

“Stop,” Matt tips his head back and makes a huffing sound that could be a laugh but isn’t quite. “John, stop. You have to stop or I can’t be responsible for—”

“Shut up,” John growls, and for once in his life, Matt does. John brushes a soft little kiss in the hollow of his throat to soften it. “Quit worrying about me. You want me, don’t you?” There’s the rosy, blotchy shadow of a new bruise that wasn’t there a minute ago next to Matt’s adam’s apple. He puts a kiss there too. “You want me, Matt?”

“Oh God,” Matt chokes out. John feels hands come up over the back of his head, sweep down over his shoulders and his back. “Want you…want all of you. _Been_ wanting you…”

“Always,” John mutters, finding Matt’s mouth again and kissing firmly. “You said always.” 

Matt kisses him back, but it’s awkward, bumping and catching while he multitasks nodding emphatically and giving John his answer in broken little fragments between nips and pecks. “I did. I do. Always.”

“Then shut up,” John pants again. He cups Matt’s cheek to be sure he’s got his attention, and looks him straight in the eyes. “Shut up and show me.”

Matt stares back. He swallows hard, and then nodding breathlessly, starts on John’s belt buckle.

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d1.png.html)

Matt makes short work of the rest of both their clothes, impressively without ever needing to stop the things his mouth is doing with John’s lips, his neck, even his earlobe and the top of his head.

Now this, this is his Matt, all exuberance and fervour and brash, demanding energy. And it’s _all_ of him. 

If John thought it was something before, having Matt shirtless in his bed, now he’s really in for it. Everything in his brain seems to get shoved out by the way his hands move over Matt’s skin, sweeping down the length of his body, over the curve of his ass and down the line of his thighs in an unbroken path. 

That taut, graceful strength of him goes all the way down. It’s in the slim, muscular legs and even the stiff, jutting cock as Matt climbs eagerly on top of him, lining it up with John’s own and wrapping both of them in an agile-fingered grip.

It should be weird, and maybe it is a little, but it’s also too amazing for John to care. He props himself up on one arm for a better view. It sends a warning shooting downward from his shoulder but he can’t bring himself to care about that either, not with Matt’s legs splayed over his hips, and both their cocks moving through his fist in a rhythm just a shade away from too quick. His other hand slides along one of those thighs, up over his waist and ribs. 

It’s like he can’t stop touching. He reaches up and traces a finger down the flat of Matt’s chest, lets his fingernails curve around and under a nipple. Matt’s back arches and his head tips back, exposing the column of his throat. The sight in the dim, twilit tones of the room _actually_ takes John’s breath, and makes his chest hurt.

“So goddamn pretty,” John grates out, enthralled. Matt’s head drops forward and he lets out a little broken sound.

“You can’t talk like that,” he gasps. His grip tightens by a fraction and John feels a throb of reaction against his shaft. “I’m… I can’t… Holy shit.” Matt abandons what he’s doing and slides down so he can situate himself between John’s knees. “God, you get me _so_ —” he mumbles fretfully, before shutting himself up by putting his mouth to John’s skin again. 

Matt noses and nuzzles around everywhere except where he should be, dropping teasing kisses and grazes of sharp, provocative teeth in a way that is starting to make John nuts again, until Matt takes him in hand, curling a clearly practiced palm around him and rubbing a knowing thumb maddeningly over the ridge of his dick. 

His mouth is still working too, trailing downward and opening up to take John’s sack into its wet heat. That’s a surprise, though not an unpleasant one, and it gets a grunt out of him. Matt makes a little self-satisfied noise that vibrates in places that are not at all unpleasant either, then he’s letting go, and running what must be his tongue under John’s balls, along the sensitive skin behind them …and down. Apparently he’s not out of surprises yet.

“Matt!” It comes out in an embarrassingly breathless gasp. 

Matt peeks up at him from between his knees, and the look alone is enough to make his cock kick in Matt’s hand.

“You said to show you,” Matt says slyly, and pushes at his ass cheek, opening him up. “Let me show you _this_.” Then there is that wicked tongue again, _doing_ things. 

John doesn’t know what to do with it, this completely new sensation. It’s by turns intense and then subtle, winding the pressure up in the place below his gut like a tightly coiled spring, and sending delicate thrills racing up his spine; each one as unexpected and bewildering as the last. It isn’t long before he’s rasping out Matt’s name again.

Matt’s response to the warning is to switch the position of his mouth and his hand, replacing his tongue with a stroking finger, and swallowing John down deep in one enthusiastic go.

The abrupt warmth and the swift, perfect suction are more than he can handle. Matt bobs once, twice, and there’s a flick of that finger, and then another, and that’s all she wrote. He grabs wildly for Matt’s shoulder – out of warnings now, and too late – as all the tension pooled in his loins crests and breaks and John comes like he hasn’t in years, letting out a choked-off shout and trying not to buck too hard.

Matt coughs a little anyway, when he first pulls back, but then he presses his mouth into John’s inner thigh, and hums contentedly.

John focuses on breathing, and lets his fingers roam over Matt’s shoulders and the back of his neck, where the skin is starting to go dewy with freshly springing sweat. They find their way into Matt’s hair again, stroking idly while his brain comes spiraling slowly back down to earth.

“C’mere,” he tells him, finally, and the ripely swollen lips pressed into him curve in a silent smile. Matt obliges, leaving a trail of lax, open-mouthed kisses over his abdomen and chest, and slotting himself in beside him again.

John’s arms go around him, drawing him closer, and Matt tucks his head under John’s chin and mouths along his collar bone. While he’s glad for Matt’s opportunity to indulge his long held cereal-endangering fantasy if that’s what’s going on, it doesn’t feel quite like that’s what it is.

“Am I not allowed to kiss you now?”

“Um,” Matt leans back just enough to answer. “Etiquette kind of dictates I’m the one who has to ask whether I’m allowed to kiss you.”

John answers by lunging forward and pressing their lips together, hard. Matt laughs into it and then kisses back, opening up softly and letting him in.

If tasting the dark, musky flavour of himself on Matt is supposed to be a turnoff, that’s not the way it turns out to work. John doesn’t want to think about it too closely, it’s probably some kind of weird, fucked up territorial thing he should never admit to Matt out loud. 

It’s easy enough to ignore anyway, with Matt pressing the entire, hot length of himself against him again. The place where his erection is bumping against John’s belly is even sporting a little slick spot of pre-cum now. John holds him tighter still, pressing closer and encouraging the friction until it rises and builds into a rhythmic grinding and thrusting together of their flesh.

Then suddenly Matt’s kiss has teeth in it, and then it stops altogether and he’s breaking off and burying his face in John’s neck again.

“John, I’m—” Matt gasps, between desperate little moans. “Can I?”

“No,” John answers, surprising even himself. His hand goes to Matt’s hip to still him. “Let me.”

There’s no time for Matt to react before John is pushing him flat on his back. His shoulder gives a pang of protest again, but John ignores it, holding himself up over him.

It’s hard to think that just days ago he couldn’t even wrap his head around how to find Matt attractive. In the last couple of days John has either developed a seriously biased opinion, or laid out like this he really is gorgeous – from the wide, dark eyes under tousled bangs just beginning to dampen at the roots, right down to the frustrated, leaking cock, dark-flushed and bobbing in the air in denied frustration. 

He gathers up Matt’s wrists, urging them up over his head. The look in Matt’s eye is wild, and a little leery, but he goes with it without resistance.

John gives a smirk, lending his voice that low, graveled tone that drove Matt down between his knees the last time he used it.

“Can’t fuck like you fuck Brad, huh?”

“Ohmygod,” Matt babbles, his words rushing together now, incoherent and out of breath. “Didnmeanit like that.” He shifts his right arm a little, testing the grip on his wrists, but doesn’t try to pull loose. “Didn’t think you w—” 

“There’s time,” John interrupts, still pitched low. Matt goes quiet and bites at his lip. His legs move restlessly against the coverlet. 

“Maybe not tonight,” John purrs, releasing him so he can prop himself up on an elbow, and wrap his hand around the hot silk-over-steel of that tightly erect cock. Matt’s breath goes in sharply, then shudders on the way back out. “Maybe tomorrow.” Matt whimpers and rolls his head back against the bed. He presses upward a little further into John’s grip and his dick gives a hopeful surge against his palm. John keeps his hand still. “Maybe in the morning when you’re still here, still asleep in my bed, maybe I’ll get up and put the coffee on and then I’ll come back and pound your ass into the mattress before our first cup, huh. How about that?”

“ _Shit_ ,” is all Matt gets out in reply. He throbs thickly in John’s hand again and a tremor moves through him – without the benefit of any encouragement but his voice alone, and John starts to suspect he might not need to do much to get Matt off at all.

It’s bullshit, what they say about old dogs and new tricks, but he wants to watch what is happening on Matt’s face far too desperately to try doing what Matt did to him – even if he thought were ready for that. So he licks a finger instead, and reaches down with his free hand, finds his target and brushes his slick finger over the tight, quivering pucker.

“I _will_ fuck you, Matt,” he says, quiet. Matt’s fingers open and close, plucking vexedly at the bedcovers. “But not like you fuck Brad.” John moves his finger in a circle, and Matt’s body twists and lurches under him, as if he can’t decide whether to push down into the touch, or up into the other hand still motionlessly but firmly gripping his cock. “I am going to fuck you _better_.” 

“Oh shit,” Matt says, again. Another shudder goes through him, and his fingers twist into the fabric of the bedspread, gripping it tight in his fist. “Shit, shit…John!”

His shoulder is really not having it now, starting to burn and tremble with the strain of holding himself up in this position, but it won’t be long now. John keeps the pressure of his grip steady, shifting it just enough to brush his thumb against the sensitive vein under the tip of Matt’s cock. Then he grits his teeth and lowers himself down enough to say it in Matt’s ear: “Come on. Come for me, Matt.”

It’s worth the price of admission. When Matt goes off, it’s with that newly discovered beauty and grace that is Matt, in the arch of his back and the flush on his cheeks, but it’s also with that blinding force that comes with youth – not to mention hours of prep. He shoots up into the air the way young guys do, and over and over again, leaving little splashes all over his chest, and John’s. 

John watches hungrily, waiting out the tremor of fatigue in his arm until they can both collapse against the sheets, quaking and spent.

“Too easy,” John pants. “Didn’t even have to tug.”

A loosely curled hand lands on his bicep in what is likely supposed to be a punch in the arm. “At least you didn’t call me ‘Holly’ this time.”

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/d2.png.html)

“How are you going to tell him?” John asks in spite of himself. They are lying almost diagonal across the bed, limbs still tangled together in a disorganized jumble. They’ve got their breath back, and are working on their coordination next, the sweat just beginning cool on their skin.

“I have to tell him?” Matt asks, deadpan, and John’s arm feels leaden and slow when he brings it up to half-heartedly cuff at the side of his head. He’s grinning when he goes on. “Oh, I don’t think he’ll mind too much. I’ll just introduce him to Lucy. Brad’s seen that picture of her and Jack you keep on the mantel. He thinks they’re both very cute.”

“ _Cute_ is right,” he grunts, warningly. “That picture is ten years old.”

“I told him it’s no wonder. I mean, their mother? Smokin’ babe in her day, right? He said he’d _love_ to—”

John feels the coordination coming back to his limbs now, enough at least that he can roll over and gather up both of Matt’s wrists. It doesn’t take much to get them pinned up over his head again, a mere couple of seconds’ wrestling with a – mostly – mock growl in his throat, and the sound of Matt’s laughter in his ears. 

John could really get used to that sound, over and over and to the end of his days; so sweet and rich and just for him. In fact he might not even mind now and then, not being the only one Matt makes it for, now that he knows there are plenty of other noises he can get out of him that nobody else is going to be getting the privilege to hear.

Words like ‘ha, ow, hey _uncle_ okay?’ and ‘fuck, fuck, fuck come here’. There’s that stifled sort of involuntary hissing noise he can bring out using his teeth, and that incoherent little strangled moan when he uses his hands.

Oh yeah. Those will do nicely. 

But they’re just a start. 

“Matt,” John says, a little huskily perhaps, when he has Matt stretched out under him, panting and flushed all over again. “…Love you back.”

The look that hits Matt’s eye then is almost as good as hearing him laugh. The grin the words get him is wider than John has ever seen it, and it lights him up brighter than any shot of morphine ever could.

Then it gets even better, when the new light in Matt’s eyes gets some twinkle to it, and a little mischief creeps in alongside the joy. Matt grips him tight by the back of the neck, and presses their bodies together in a way that leaves no space for any more thought. 

“Shut up and show me,” he says.

  
**THE END**

 

[ ](http://s1104.photobucket.com/user/snickpics/media/Coming%20Clean/header2.jpg.html)

 

by persnickett  
with artwork by evian_fork


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